Day 7 in the classroom
Oh my gosh today was SO great!
So first off, I got there and was so nervous about presenting my lesson. SO. NERVOUS. My mentor teacher kept telling me not to be nervous and that I was going to be great, but I couldn't stop worrying. I spent the morning making copies and going over my lesson (for about the million and tenth time). I did some one-on-one math work with a struggling student, which I feel was beneficial for her as a student and for me as a future teacher. I spent a lot of time correcting papers, grading tests, and recording grades in the grade-book this morning.
I took the kids down to lunch and reminded them all to say "please" and "thank you," and today was the FIRST time that EVERY single student said please and thank you, and not only that, but the few students still in line from the class ahead of mine all said please and thank you as well. I don't know if it actually makes a difference in the big scheme of things, but to me, it matters. It really does. I was raised to say please and thank you, and sometimes it really bothers me when the kids don't. So I really make a big deal of them using their manners. I thank them while we're in line, and today when they were back in class, I told them all again how proud I am of them and how much I really love it when they act like the big kids and use such great manners. I feel like that behavior needs to be encouraged or it will eventually stop, unfortunately.
I ate my lunch in the teacher's room, as usual, but left pretty much as soon as I finished my sandwich because I wanted time to go back over my lesson again -- math is right after lunch, so I wanted to be as prepared as I possibly could. I had written on my hand: "Bell ringer, smartboard, booklet, game" just so I would remember what order to do it all in. Paranoid much? Yeah...
So the students get back from lunch and they're all hyper and crazy and... pretty much acting like first graders right after lunch would act. My mentor teacher got them all in their seats and told them that I would be teaching the math lesson today, and that they needed to be on their absolute BEST behavior. She told them that if they got spoken to for not behaving while I was teaching the lesson, that they would lose their recess. So they were all (for the most part) extremely well behaved.
My lesson was on adding multiples of ten to two-digit numbers. Everything for the lesson (the video explaining the topic, the booklet they were working on, everything) was online, so I had to use the smartboard a lot, which I had a few issues with (mostly because I had no idea how to use the smartboard...), but nothing major and I handled it. A few times, they started to get too loud, so I did the clapping thing (you clap a pattern and they have to do it back. It quiets them down.) and got the class (mostly) under control again. I feel like I really could have had better control of them if I had been louder. I try to be loud, I really do, but I'm not a loud person. I walked around the class while they were working and checked to make sure they were understanding what we were doing. A few students didn't completely understand it, but I helped them and I think they understood afterwards.
We got through the lesson quicker than I thought we would, which I was glad about because that meant their was time for my Bingo game! Ok, you need to understand, I made this bingo game. I looked at what they were learning (adding tens to a two-digit number) and I made up math questions, putting the answers on the cards. I spent hours Saturday photoshopping twenty different Bingo cards (all the same numbers, just in different spots on the card). I went and spent $10 of my own money to buy prizes for the winning team (I ended up having the students work in pairs instead of individually. So those 20 bingo cards I made? Yeah I only used 10 of them.) and to buy highlighters for the students to mark the cards with (I didn't want actual markers even though that would have been cheaper, because I needed for them to still be able to see the numbers after they've marked them.) I now have more highlighters than I will ever need ever in my entire life -ever.
But enough about making the bingo game. Let's talk playing the game. We finished with the booklet they had to do, and they put that away. After math they do journals, so students were asking me "can I pass journals???" You've never truly heard a child's disappointment if you haven't heard their "awwwww" after being told "Nope, go back to your seats. We're not done with math yet." That disappointment turns to joy in a millisecond when they hear you say "We're going to play a math game -- raise your hand if you've ever played Bingo!" Oh my goodness, were they EVER excited! As I passed out the cards and highlighters, I explained how the game was going to work -- I was going to call out a problem, and they were going to work with their partner to figure out the answer and find it on their card. It was so exciting because by the end of it, some of the students who were having a bit of trouble while we were doing the booklet were doing it in their heads!!!
A team of two girls sitting right in the front ended up winning, which I was really happy about. I hadn't told them that there was going to be a prize for the winning team, so when I went to my bag and pulled out two journals and gave them to them, the smiles on their face were just priceless. I love seeing "my" students so happy like that! I love that something so simple brings them so much joy and happiness!! One of the girls on the winning team said to me that she wasn't going to write in the journal she'd won. When I asked her why, she replied with "I'm gonna keep it for a long time because it's really special to me." [insert "awww too cute!!" here]
After my lesson, I had to go conference with my Block 1 coordinator about how it went. I wasn't surprised when she said I need to work on being louder and that I need to work on classroom management. BUT seeing as this was my first time ever teaching a lesson to the whole class, I'd say it went pretty well. It wasn't perfect, no, not by a long shot. But it was alright. It wasn't bad. And truth is that I'm really really really proud of myself and how this lesson went, and I think this was the best day I've had so far in the school.
When I got back to the classroom after meeting with my coordinator, it was time for journals. After the students read their journals, I presented the Literacy Take-Home Bag I'd made for the class (as an assignment for one of my Block 1 classes) to the class. I showed them the book (Frog and Toad Are Friends by Arnold Lobel) and read them the parent letter describing the bag. I explained that the journal in the bag was to be a Friendship Journal, and that there were journal prompts for in case they couldn't think of what to write about. They were so excited about it!! When I asked who wanted to be the first to take it home, every hand shot up in the air. There was no "first one up," they were all up at once. To make it fair, I gave them a math problem and the first student who gave me the correct answer got to take it home first.
As they were getting up to go back to their desks, I watched as one little girl punched a boy in the leg for no apparent reason. "Hey, no! Go write your name on the board right now - you just got ten minutes of timeout in recess. We don't hit in school." Without protesting or acting mad at me, she got up and wrote down her name; I think she knew it was her own fault she was in trouble. So recess starts, and she's got ten minutes of timeout where she needs to be sitting quietly at her desk. I'm sitting at the teacher's desk, grading papers, when she comes up out of nowhere and hugs me.
Me: What's this for?
Student: Because I love you.
Me: You're sweet. Now go back to timeout.
I love this. I can't wait until this is my real job. I'm not ready for this experience to be over. I'm not ready to be back in "real" classes all day. I get more out of being in the classroom than I do from sitting in a classroom. But alas, I suppose all good things must become memories at some point in one's life. I'm really going to miss it though. Today was just the most perfect day ever, and even though I know I have a lot I still need to work on and a lot I can improve on, this is what I'm going to spend my life doing. Look, I'm so nervous in front of people, but it just feels so right being in the classroom and teaching. Having this opportunity to be in the classroom like this has made me realize that I feel like I was literally born to do this. This is why I'm here.
So first off, I got there and was so nervous about presenting my lesson. SO. NERVOUS. My mentor teacher kept telling me not to be nervous and that I was going to be great, but I couldn't stop worrying. I spent the morning making copies and going over my lesson (for about the million and tenth time). I did some one-on-one math work with a struggling student, which I feel was beneficial for her as a student and for me as a future teacher. I spent a lot of time correcting papers, grading tests, and recording grades in the grade-book this morning.
I took the kids down to lunch and reminded them all to say "please" and "thank you," and today was the FIRST time that EVERY single student said please and thank you, and not only that, but the few students still in line from the class ahead of mine all said please and thank you as well. I don't know if it actually makes a difference in the big scheme of things, but to me, it matters. It really does. I was raised to say please and thank you, and sometimes it really bothers me when the kids don't. So I really make a big deal of them using their manners. I thank them while we're in line, and today when they were back in class, I told them all again how proud I am of them and how much I really love it when they act like the big kids and use such great manners. I feel like that behavior needs to be encouraged or it will eventually stop, unfortunately.
I ate my lunch in the teacher's room, as usual, but left pretty much as soon as I finished my sandwich because I wanted time to go back over my lesson again -- math is right after lunch, so I wanted to be as prepared as I possibly could. I had written on my hand: "Bell ringer, smartboard, booklet, game" just so I would remember what order to do it all in. Paranoid much? Yeah...
So the students get back from lunch and they're all hyper and crazy and... pretty much acting like first graders right after lunch would act. My mentor teacher got them all in their seats and told them that I would be teaching the math lesson today, and that they needed to be on their absolute BEST behavior. She told them that if they got spoken to for not behaving while I was teaching the lesson, that they would lose their recess. So they were all (for the most part) extremely well behaved.
My lesson was on adding multiples of ten to two-digit numbers. Everything for the lesson (the video explaining the topic, the booklet they were working on, everything) was online, so I had to use the smartboard a lot, which I had a few issues with (mostly because I had no idea how to use the smartboard...), but nothing major and I handled it. A few times, they started to get too loud, so I did the clapping thing (you clap a pattern and they have to do it back. It quiets them down.) and got the class (mostly) under control again. I feel like I really could have had better control of them if I had been louder. I try to be loud, I really do, but I'm not a loud person. I walked around the class while they were working and checked to make sure they were understanding what we were doing. A few students didn't completely understand it, but I helped them and I think they understood afterwards.
We got through the lesson quicker than I thought we would, which I was glad about because that meant their was time for my Bingo game! Ok, you need to understand, I made this bingo game. I looked at what they were learning (adding tens to a two-digit number) and I made up math questions, putting the answers on the cards. I spent hours Saturday photoshopping twenty different Bingo cards (all the same numbers, just in different spots on the card). I went and spent $10 of my own money to buy prizes for the winning team (I ended up having the students work in pairs instead of individually. So those 20 bingo cards I made? Yeah I only used 10 of them.) and to buy highlighters for the students to mark the cards with (I didn't want actual markers even though that would have been cheaper, because I needed for them to still be able to see the numbers after they've marked them.) I now have more highlighters than I will ever need ever in my entire life -ever.
But enough about making the bingo game. Let's talk playing the game. We finished with the booklet they had to do, and they put that away. After math they do journals, so students were asking me "can I pass journals???" You've never truly heard a child's disappointment if you haven't heard their "awwwww" after being told "Nope, go back to your seats. We're not done with math yet." That disappointment turns to joy in a millisecond when they hear you say "We're going to play a math game -- raise your hand if you've ever played Bingo!" Oh my goodness, were they EVER excited! As I passed out the cards and highlighters, I explained how the game was going to work -- I was going to call out a problem, and they were going to work with their partner to figure out the answer and find it on their card. It was so exciting because by the end of it, some of the students who were having a bit of trouble while we were doing the booklet were doing it in their heads!!!
A team of two girls sitting right in the front ended up winning, which I was really happy about. I hadn't told them that there was going to be a prize for the winning team, so when I went to my bag and pulled out two journals and gave them to them, the smiles on their face were just priceless. I love seeing "my" students so happy like that! I love that something so simple brings them so much joy and happiness!! One of the girls on the winning team said to me that she wasn't going to write in the journal she'd won. When I asked her why, she replied with "I'm gonna keep it for a long time because it's really special to me." [insert "awww too cute!!" here]
After my lesson, I had to go conference with my Block 1 coordinator about how it went. I wasn't surprised when she said I need to work on being louder and that I need to work on classroom management. BUT seeing as this was my first time ever teaching a lesson to the whole class, I'd say it went pretty well. It wasn't perfect, no, not by a long shot. But it was alright. It wasn't bad. And truth is that I'm really really really proud of myself and how this lesson went, and I think this was the best day I've had so far in the school.
When I got back to the classroom after meeting with my coordinator, it was time for journals. After the students read their journals, I presented the Literacy Take-Home Bag I'd made for the class (as an assignment for one of my Block 1 classes) to the class. I showed them the book (Frog and Toad Are Friends by Arnold Lobel) and read them the parent letter describing the bag. I explained that the journal in the bag was to be a Friendship Journal, and that there were journal prompts for in case they couldn't think of what to write about. They were so excited about it!! When I asked who wanted to be the first to take it home, every hand shot up in the air. There was no "first one up," they were all up at once. To make it fair, I gave them a math problem and the first student who gave me the correct answer got to take it home first.
As they were getting up to go back to their desks, I watched as one little girl punched a boy in the leg for no apparent reason. "Hey, no! Go write your name on the board right now - you just got ten minutes of timeout in recess. We don't hit in school." Without protesting or acting mad at me, she got up and wrote down her name; I think she knew it was her own fault she was in trouble. So recess starts, and she's got ten minutes of timeout where she needs to be sitting quietly at her desk. I'm sitting at the teacher's desk, grading papers, when she comes up out of nowhere and hugs me.
Me: What's this for?
Student: Because I love you.
Me: You're sweet. Now go back to timeout.
I love this. I can't wait until this is my real job. I'm not ready for this experience to be over. I'm not ready to be back in "real" classes all day. I get more out of being in the classroom than I do from sitting in a classroom. But alas, I suppose all good things must become memories at some point in one's life. I'm really going to miss it though. Today was just the most perfect day ever, and even though I know I have a lot I still need to work on and a lot I can improve on, this is what I'm going to spend my life doing. Look, I'm so nervous in front of people, but it just feels so right being in the classroom and teaching. Having this opportunity to be in the classroom like this has made me realize that I feel like I was literally born to do this. This is why I'm here.
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