My cooperating teacher decided late last night that she needed to take a day off today. She is really struggling with the noise level in the room and feels fairly overwhelmed so today I worked with a sub who works regularly in the building. It was really difficult being the only adult in the room that the students knew. Plus, having a new teacher teaching reading and language arts really threw off the kids routine. That being said, I am absolutely exhausted right now. I got a crash landing in leading wtw today. It went well, but I expected the kids to have a better understanding than they did of how to sort their words since it was the 4th time that they have done this activity. I had to back-track to reintroduce how the words should be sorted.
Math and science both went really well. The math assignment today I knew would leave the kids ancy in their seats, which it did, but everyone completed the assignment and understood what we were working on. In science my cooperating teacher was missed when I had to ask for the students attention more than once. However, it did give me an opportunity to try out my own classroom management techniques.
I'm excited to go home and take a nap before I head out to work at the pool tonight!
Sounds like a great day to get a feel for what running a classroom "solo" will require, although you had some variables (absent teacher, substitute) that won't play into the equation when you've taken over responsibility for teaching everything. I think one of the biggest adjustments teachers make in the beginning of a school year is assuming too much. We don't want to "over-teach" (that is, repeat directions over and over again if kids don't need the reminders), but sometimes we're surprised when we haven't taught (or re-taught) as much as we need to. And the thing is, every new year of students will require different levels of intervention, obviously--some will be fine after 4 experiences with an activity (like word sorting) and others will need to take it slow for 8 sessions before they 'get it'.
ReplyDeleteAre you thinking this post is your "free choice" for the week? Tuesday's prompt was to write about "checking for understanding". Meggie and Nicole had observations with me today, so they weren't required to post. Let me know. I'll send you an email, too.