1.6.17

New me, new year. Right?

Well, maybe not so much, but there definitely has been a lot of changes. I was excited to start my student teaching semester with my kindergarten class this past Monday! I felt refreshed and ready to start again. I definitely needed the break (even if it did fly by). It allowed me to reflect, plan, and prepare for the crazy, chaotic, stressful, exciting, semester that I have ahead. In case you didn't hear, it started pouring snow while we were at school today! It was CRAZY!! We were able to take the students outside to play in the snow. However, they didn't dismiss school early, so the end of the day was chaos as you can imagine.


My Week: 3

My week was anything from just fantastically great, but it was better than just okay! As you can imagine, the kiddos were a little wild. It seems that leave for the weekend and forget all of the rules and expectations of school, so you can only imagine what two weeks was like. Along with that, I think all teachers will agree that when snow is coming, the kids go a little crazy! However, all things considering, it was a pretty good week!

Observe: I was pleasantly surprised at how well the students have already adapted to me. I only took over the things that we have done all year this week (calendar, star student, phonics review), but it was a pretty easy transition. I think that this mainly due to the fact that I have been a part of the classroom all year.

Reflect: Honestly, I need to be more confident with myself. I often find that I'm nervous which causes me to stumble over my words or forget pieces of my lesson. I've noticed throughout my teaching (mainly today actually), when I just accept myself and have confidence in my teaching and myself, I perform 10 times better!! This was definitely a lesson well learned.

Focus: Right now, my short term efforts involve finding an effective and productive way to lesson plan. Of course my long term plans include completing student teaching, but also to help lead my students to success. My short term goals definitely connect to this is several ways. Planning effectively and productively with help my students in many ways. I want to develop lesson plans that will challenge them and push them to new levels. This will also allow me to be successful in my student teaching and lead to successful outcome!

Be Productive: Honestly, I couldn't believe how much time it took me to lesson plan for next week, and that's not even for full instruction. I'm hoping that it will become easier to think of ideas and put my thoughts into words over time. I also am planning a schedule. If I can plan one subject per day, I can break up my work throughout the week! I could have spent more time practicing and reviewing my lessons. I think that was my biggest struggle this week. I need to mentally prepare myself for the lessons before hand.

Begin Anew: I want to begin my lesson planning early!!! I don't want to be crammed like I was this week, trying to finish everything at once. In order to declutter, I have already planned out my thoughts and ideas in order to plan better.

Since I didn't have any specific lesson plans this week, I can't say that I can specifically reference the NCTCS. However, after working closely with the students over this past week I can say that I was able to connect to standard 2a: teachers provide an environment in which each child has a positive, nurturing relationship with caring adults.  I have developed relationships with my students that make them feel safe, free to express themselves, cared for, and receive positive feedback.

I began working on my classroom website this week! I have developed the overall layout and finished the About Me page. So far, my CE and I don't need any specific support from my clinical supervisor. We have been able to all stay in contact throughout the week!