Intro:
My classroom experiences were split between two classrooms for my very first Gordon Terrace INSITU. My first and third experience were in a grade two class, and my second experience was in a Kindergarten class. For the sake of organization, I will be breaking the two experiences up.
Grade Two:
Grade two was a grade in which I had some previous experience, as that was where my very first practicum was. Because of that, I felt like I had some sense of familiarity with what the kids were going to be like. On day one of my practice, I was a bit nervous, but fortunately, due to her busy life as a Vice Principal as well as a teacher, there was a twenty-minute portion where students could participate in center time, draw, or silent read. This was a great opportunity for me as it allowed me to talk and meet lots of the kids in a really low-stakes, chill environment. I was able to get answers on what the class was like and things they liked, and build as much of a relationship with the students as I could in a short time frame. After center time, the teacher returned, and the class started to begin rolling. After arriving, the class gathered on the carpet to begin the morning meeting. Next to the teacher’s chair and at the front of the class was a poster paper with the morning message. The morning message was missing letters, allowing for students to come and work on their spelling and literacy, weaved into their morning meeting. There were also simple math questions that were connected to their current math unit, and a small pattern at the bottom. It was cool to see that even in their morning meeting, and the shape of the day learning was woven into, getting their brains warm for the main portion of the morning. Following the morning meeting, it was time for literacy in the form of a story. The story was “Brave Irene,” a heartwarming story of a girl delivering her mother’s dress to a princess through a snowstorm. Before the story began the teacher guided the class through a prediction using the cover and the back cover of the story, connecting this lesson to the Big Idea “Curiosity and wonder lead us to new discoveries about ourselves and the world around us” as well as “Engage actively as listeners, viewers, and readers, as appropriate, to develop understanding of self, identity, and community” from the core competencies. After wrapping up the predictions, we moved into the storytelling portion of the class. Like the beginning, there were frequent pauses for the students to make predictions, connect the story together, and to use imagery in effective ways. There was also a large emphasis on analyzing the beginning, middle, and end of the story, and using discussion, the students were able to fully grasp it. After concluding the story, I was unfortunately out of time, and although I was unable to participate for the worksheet, I was able to snag a picture the day after. Overall, my experience was very valuable, and I was able to gain a new understanding of how to build literacy skills through oral storytelling.
Day Two:
Day two of my grade two was a bit more engaging as a teacher. It began in the same way as before, allowing me to circulate and talk to the children whom I hadn’t seen in two weeks. After free time was over, morning meeting began again. It followed the same format as the previous week, but with a new special helper. Following this was the real meat and potatoes of the insitu for me. The teacher broke the students into groups and commenced literacy stations. Somer and I were each assigned a station and flipped halfway through. I began in the games station, which I was pretty stoked about. The game we played had a specific name I can’t remember, but it was basically Bingo. You would spin a spinner, which would land on a word, if students had said a word, they would read it, and then mark it off their sheet. This game was fun, but a little redundant, and by the end, you were spinning two or three times to get a word you haven’t used yet. Aside from this, it was a decently fun game, and it was more fun to just be involved and play with the students. The second station I got to flip to halfway through was a worksheet which included literacy, math, reasoning, and measurement. Again, this was a really fun activity, and the students were very familiar with it, a handful of students challenged me in a race to see who complete the worksheet faster, and I had to show them why I was the teacher and they were the student, taking care of business and not losing once. Overall, I really enjoyed the class, it gave me a good glimpse into some literacy strategies, and I got to have a good time hanging with the students, overall an awesome learning experience for me.
Kindergarten:
For my third day in Gordon Terrace, I found myself in a Kindergarten class, unfamiliar territory for me, as I have only ever worked with kindies in the PE setting. The class started very similarly to the previous one. I was able to join in for center time and get to build a little bit of connection with the students building a dinosaur puzzle, which was almost more enjoyable for me than the students. After the fifteen minutes of centres, it was time for morning meeting, and an experience that I was thoroughly impressed by. To begin, the students had assigned seating and moved into their spots quickly and easily. From there, the meeting moved like clockwork, they went over the days of the week, the weather, the daily pattern (which was very impressive) and anything else a morning meeting might hold. From there, it was the literacy portion of the class. This began with a book about if Dinosaurs were real, which got me thinking how that would be a great idea for a movie, I then realized this already existed and it was called Jurassic Park, and there were like ten movies with this idea, and I felt dumb. The book was great, and the class and I listened intently. After finishing, the teacher brought out some large grid paper, and the students brain stormed some ideas about what they would do if they had a dinosaur of their own, students had some great ideas such as taking them to school, using them to get high places, and riding them to the icecream store. From there, we practicum students were assigned a table of students, and to help them scribe and come up with ideas for what the students wanted to do with their dinosaurs. Fortunately, my students did not need help to come up with ideas, and all I had to do was write their ideas out and hang out with them while they coloured. After they had finished, I was able to do some reading with the students. After concluding the class, we debriefed and went home, finishing my first Kindergarten experience
