It seems like just yesterday I embarked on my second student teaching placement. Time has flown by so fast that I have yet to post about my first graders. Lets see, first grade was nothing like I imagined it would be. I had really low expectations for what first graders were capable of and lets just say that they blew me away with what they were able to do and learn. Throughout my placement I taught them about fluency, setting, questioning, dinosaurs, fractions, money and matter. I never realized how much a first grader could write either! My favorite part about first grade was seeing how enthusiastic they would be every morning when they would walk in the door. Before they even had their jackets off, they would be talking your ear off about what they did last night or about what they read recently.
My favorite unit during this placement was teaching about dinosaurs. Growing up I was never really a fan of dinosaurs, but seeing how excited the first graders were to learn about each one, made me excited to teach them about dinosaurs. Each day I let my students pick a new dinosaur. I would read them a book about the particular dinosaur and then they would have to write at least four sentences about that dinosaur in their Dino Facts books. One day they even got to type their sentences in the computer lab and print out their pictures. We sent home their colorful pictures to show their parents and displayed the black and white photos for the rest of the community to see. The ones displayed
below are of Tyrannosaurus Rex. It just so happened to be the first dinosaur that the first graders were able to learn about.
I truly have enjoyed my time with the first graders and will miss teaching them everyday and hearing their wonderful stories when there is not supposed to be conversations taking place. My all time favorite moment of this semester was seeing many of my students learn how to read. It seemed like over the course of a few weeks reading just clicked for many of the students in the classroom. One boy in the classroom looked at me after his reading group finished meeting with me and said, "Can I be in two reading groups?" This came from a boy who just two weeks ago was significantly below the reading level benchmark. One day it just seemed to click and he could not read enough. He wanted to spend all of his time either reading or writing.
Tomorrow I start a new adventure! I will be meeting with my supervisor to pass in my University of Maine Student Teaching Portfolio, where I will show that I have met all the standards and proficiencies to become a first year teacher. From there the application process will begin!
