Its about that time

So my partner and I are about to start our unit on economics in the next couple of weeks and for some reason the both of us are more nervous to teach this topic then we have been on any other topic. We have still not seen social studies taught and we have been there for weeks. As much as this school talks about CATS and how they need to improve their scores you would think that they would be doing a little more with social studies. I think we have a lot riding on our lessons because this is all the students will get before they take the test. I am kind of shocked that more information has not been given to the students regarding social studies because they are taking CATS very soon. This is one of the reasons I do not want to teach in Kentucky. I have never heard so much about a state test then I have in all of my practicum settings. While attending school myself we hardly ever talked about the state tests. We were reminded it was coming up a week before and then we took the test and we never really heard about it again. I can not imagine how much pressure students and teachers are under regarding this tests.

First time teaching

I finally taught this week! My first unit was Science and I taught animals. Day 1 I taught an introduction on all the animals, the food chain and producers and consumers. Day one went well only classroom management was a little crazy because they were excited that I was teaching. Day 2 went well and they did great. I taught mammals. I brought in lots of pictures of mammals from magazines and they loved it! All in all it went great, so now all that I have left is teaching economics.

First Day Back

Today I taught a math lesson and I owned it. I felt really good about the lesson. Several teachers came into the classroom and told my teacher that my lesson was really good. My teacher threw me for a loop and asked me cover something with the students that I was not prepared to discuss. She said I did an awesome job. I was really proud of myself.

Crunch Time!!!

I can't believe how fast this semester is going by. I feel like I have so much to do still and very little time to do it. I don't know if anyone else feels this way but I sure do! I am really excited about teaching my math lesson next week. The students keep asking me and Amy when we are going to present a lesson again so that makes us feel good. I really enjoy working with the students in our classroom and I feel like I am learning a lot from helping them discover new things. The students are working on the continent of Africa and they have packets made up with different activities dealing with Africa. One of the things they are doing in their packet is labeling the continent of Africa and coloring it in. I like this activity but I think that the teacher should have maps that match the blank maps they are trying to fill out because some of the students are having a hard time matching the countries in the atlas with the area on their blank map. I'm not sure if it is just because they are so young and new at using their map skills or if they should have better maps to look at.

This is hard

So I am trying to plan my social studies lessons. I have come to the conclusion that it is hard. It is really hard for me to plan a lesson on a subject that i have never seen my teacher teach before. I have no clue how the students are use to getting taught. I guess it doesn't matter as long as the students learn something (hopefully). My teacher doesn't even care what I talk about when I teach them about the community. So I guess it is up to me, to do whatever I want.

Crazy Week!

What a week it was at Campbell Ridge Elementary! Thursday it was crazy enough to last me a couple of weeks. I started out by pulling in the parking lot and there were cars everywhere, not to mention I had a car coming at me in the wrong direction. Long story short it was Grandparents Day. I had grandparents coming up to me thinking I was their grandchild's teacher, it was great. Because it was the day before heading off for spring break, I didn't see any instruction what so ever! To top it off, the last hour was a spring party! So for the remaining time, I watched my students load up on sugar. They were in rare form this week, and I know they need a break.
Update on my lessons, I have not taught yet! Due to all the snow days I'm not teaching math. So the week they come back after spring break I'm finally going to teach. My lesson will be on animals, which I think it should be fun for 2nd grade.

Have a great weekend!

A busy week at school

I am very excited because Maggie and I had a very busy week at school this week. We were shown many new roles that teachers play. On Monday our CT asked us to do playground duty. This sounds like common sense however, when you have bunches of children running around and you are responsible for what each of them is doing it becomes very stressful. I had fun though. Today our CT was being observed by the principal so she was really stressed out. I don't know why though because she is an awesome teacher and she has been teaching for 30 plus years. She had us running around like chickens with our heads cut off. We were trying to get the lesson ready and learn what our role in the lesson would be and moving things around in the classroom so that everything would fit neatly. One of the neatest things we learned today was how to prepare report cards for kindergartners. She let us help her prepare the report cards and asked us to proofread them. She included our observations about the children on the report cards. That was really cool. Then we had a fire drill today; that was fun. The fire drill was used to get the school outside for a dedication ceremony for the new pavilion. They invited the landscaper to the ceremony and the entire school gave him a very large thank you card that everyone signed. Then they dedicated the rest of the day to Fred and Wilma the custodians. Each of them was read a poem and received a very large picture frame with a cardinal in the middle and everyone in the school signed around it. We were asked to sign it too. I think it was really special that we were included.

1st Unit out of the Way! Have fun on Spring Break, but be careful!

whatz up? My partner and I just got done teaching our math unit (sweet, its out of the way!) I think that we are going to teach ecosystems for our science unit, so throw me any ideas you got. HOPE EVERYONE HAS A GREAT TIME ON SPRING BREAK, AND TRY TO GET OUT OF HERE FOR A WHILE! :) I just recieved my student teaching placement at Indian Hill Primary and I am SUPER excited 'bout that! Good Luck to everyone else. I hope you all get the schools you wanted as well! Have a good one!!!!!!!!! LIVE EVERY DAY :)