Tomorrow is my last day of student teaching with my kindergarteners. It feels strange to say it, but I have plenty of experience saying goodbye to students. I student taught when I was in college, and I had five different placements because I was working with a traveling music teacher (a middle school, a high school, and three elementary schools). I had a lot of goodbyes to make then. After that, I did two years of City Year, which meant getting to know and love two schools' worth of amazing students and saying goodbye to them when my term of service was up. My first City Year's goodbyes were the hardest goodbyes.
Tomorrow, I will be able to handle the farewells, mostly because one of my classmates is going to be student teaching there next semester. Also, I am accompanying the 3rd and 4th grade choir in their holiday concert next Tuesday, so I feel like it's not really goodbye yet. Check in next week to see how I'm feeling about it.
I have some fun things planned for tomorrow! First, I am making them a poster that is based off of a DIY holiday card I saw on Buzzfeed. It's going to have a string of lights on it (with the colored lights being painted fingerprints), and I'm going to write "Thanks for lighting up my life!" I know it's cheesy, but I like it. Then I'm going to cut it up into 25 puzzle pieces and number them. Each student will get an envelope that has their name on it. Inside the envelope will be a little note from me as well as a puzzle piece. We will count around the room and one by one the students will put the puzzle together. After they read the message on the card (or I read it to them), we're going to make a poster for their new student teacher. Part of the poster will have questions for her that they want answered (e.g. What's your favorite color? Where are you from?), and then the rest will be things they want her to know about their classroom. Hopefully the poster will ease the transition from one student teacher to the next.
In other news, Term III has been successfully handed in, and the semester is quickly coming to a close. Tomorrow is my last day of student teaching and then Thursday is my last day of class! Say hello to the last big assignment I am working on:
"Poppy" is a children's book I am writing and illustrating for my Elementary Literacy Methods course. Poppy is a soda can who is manufactured in central PA and sent to a corner store in West Philly (slightly autobiographical). Someone buys her, and drinks her, but they don't recycle her! They drop her on the ground so Poppy has to make it on her own, exploring all West Philly has to offer until someone picks her up, recycles her, and…
I honestly haven't figured out the ending yet. It's due Thursday, so hopefully I will have one by then!
If you're reading this, I hope you had a wonderful Thanksgiving! I spent a lot of time with my family over break. My holiday was full of babies, boardgames, and FOOD! But, the holiday is over and it's back to reality. The reality is my Term III assignment is due on Friday the 12th at 11:59 pm!!!!
For my Term III assignment I had to come up with an overarching question about instruction. My question is:
How can I ask high-level questions to encourage discussion among a group of students? If students respond incorrectly, how can I use their answers to add to the group’s learning?
So, with that question in mind I had to plan and execute four small group lessons in each of the content areas. Now that the lessons are done (except for the science lesson I'm doing on Monday), it's time to analyze my teaching via a nifty website called Edthena, and write a bunch of lovely papers that will then be put on a beautiful website that I created on Weebly. Here are pictures of a couple of the pages on my website.
So, knowing that I have less than a week to complete this monster of an assignment is sort of freaking me out, but there are certain things I do or that I am looking forward to which help me maintain my sanity and positivity. Here they are, in no particular order.
1.
I drink tea. Lots of tea. Tea is superior to coffee for many reasons. First and foremost, it is cheaper than coffee and doesn't require any special machinery to make it! If you have a stove top or a microwave, you are ready to make tea. Also, there are caffeinated and decaffeinated options to fit your drinking desires. There is no such thing as truly caffeine-free coffee. My favorite types of tea are Pumpkin or Vanilla Chai tea for when I want a bit of caffeine, and Chamomile or Sleepy Time tea for when I want to relax. My boyfriend got to tour the Celestial Tea factory in Denver, CO and got me a pretty mug with an R on it. The tea pot and kettle were both things we inherited from former roommates.
2.
I take walks. James and I like to do Wednesday Walks. It's a little tradition that helps us escape our homework (he's also at Penn for grad school) and get out of the apartment for a little bit. And sometimes we stop at The Lil' Pop Shop which always cheers me up. I love walking to and from campus as well as to and from my placement. It's fun to try and notice new things, even after walking the same paths day after day. A little tip for walking to school: be friendly to the crossing guards! They are great to talk to in the morning.
Here's Passion Pit, who also wants you to take a walk.
3.
I practice piano. My Mom is a musician and she kindly lets me borrow her keyboard for the majority of the year. I'm a violinist and vocalist by training, but I've always loved playing the piano. Practicing helps me clear my mind, and it's also nice to work hard at something that isn't school work or my resume. I'm currently playing Christmas music and "Waltz from the Adventures of Ivan" by Aram Khachaturian." This isn't me playing, but here's a video from youtube of the piece.
4.
I play games! I am a big fan of boardgames, as is one of my aunts. Over Thanksgiving she introduced my family to a really fun game called Dabble. Everyone gets 20 tiles. When the timer starts, you flip the tiles over and try to spell 5 words with them: a 2-letter word, a 3-letter word, a 4-letter word, a 5-letter word, and a 6-letter word. It is SO fun. The picture is from a round that I was particularly proud of. Games are a great way to spend time with the people you love and get your mind off of school work! For boardgames, I love Catan and Tribond. For card games, I love Hand and Foot, Euchre, and 500.
5.
I keep holiday traditions alive! White Christmas is one of my favorite movies of all time, as well as one of my favorite Christmas movies. I make a point to watch it every year, but last year my sister and I saw it at The Rave! It was amazing to see a movie on the big screen that we grew up watching in black and white. Seeing it on the big screen is definitely a tradition that we are going to keep alive. This movie is such a big part of my family culture that when my sister got married last year, my sisters and I did the famous "Sisters" dance from the movie - blue, feathery fans and all! Eventually my whole family joined in and it wasn't just the sisters dance. If you have no idea what I'm talking about you NEED to see this movie, or just watch the clips below. The first one is the real one, and the second one is Bing Crosby and Danny Kaye's spoof. Amazing.
6.
I remember why I'm doing this. In a matter of months I am going to be a TEACHER. That makes it all worth it.
Hello! I am a current student in Penn GSE's Teacher Education Program (Elementary Strand). I'm writing this blog as part of a Graduate Assistantship with Penn GSE's Financial Aid and Admissions Office.
