As one would guess, I've been given much more responsibility in the classroom lately. Last week, I taught my first full week of guided reading and today, I took over all the Social Studies. Guided reading went well, but I surely have a lot to learn there. I'm still getting a handle what exactly my teacher wants the focus to be in those reading groups, so figuring out what to teach and how is proving much more difficult than one would think. Unfortunately, my teacher is teaching three other reading groups while I teach my three, so it will be hard for me to get feedback on my teaching there. Also unfortunately, I feel like I struggle the most with guided reading (perhaps to my uncertainties about how to teach reading/writing?), so I would really like to get more feedback there. Though, I think my biggest struggle right now falls into classroom management, but I'll get to that later.
In terms of Social Studies, today's lesson went really well. We finished writing their vocabulary and reviewed the chapter. I led the class as we read and discussed the introduction. We reviewed regions and the themes of geography and the kids seemed to catch on pretty quickly. I'm very excited about tomorrow's lesson because the kids will be making maps of their homes to review and refine their map-making abilities. I love making maps for some reason, so I'm hoping that the kids will pick up on my enthusiasm about maps and be excited about the activity. If nothing else, they get to color. That alone should perk them up. :)
So, about that classroom management... I need to work on that. While sure, I know many ways of getting students' attention, I kind of stink at keeping it. I'm so glad that I listened to KB and kept everything from methods because I keep looking back at those things to get new ideas for my classroom management. I'm attempting to follow my cooperating teacher's classroom management and it works fine until he is no longer in the room. Let me tell you, they go crazy. Like horses, I truly believe they can sense your insecurities. I've got to find a way to build my confidence in my classroom management and build respect with the students so that I can better manage our time together. Spending three minutes waiting for all the students to get out their homework folder and put everything else away will soon drive me crazy if I cannot find a better way of managing that time. Until then, I'll brainstorm, go back to my methods notes, brainstorm some more, ask my CT for support, and practice, practice, practice. I'm getting better, but I've got a long way to go until I'll be completely confident in my management techniques.
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To close, I'll tell you about a little girl that is in my class. One her first homework assignments in Math was about time and drawing the hands on several clocks. Unfortunately, she missed all but one question. I was asked to take her into the pod and go over it with her. Shortly after taking a look at her paper, she realized her biggest mistake - she had switched all the hands around. I walked through each of the problems with her, each time asking her to explain her process of figuring out what time it was or how to draw the hands of the clock. When we were finished, I told her to keep practicing and that I would ask her later in the day to tell me the time.
Since then, I've asked her at least once a day, but several times during those days, she has come to me first to tell me the time. The look on her face beams with joy and confidence. It is adorable how proud she is when she figures out the correct time. She seems like a shy girl who is not completely confident in her actions and self. She is also one of the sweetest girls I've had the pleasure of spending my time with. I'm so proud of her and her new found confidence with telling time and I am so grateful to have had the opportunity to help spark that.
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