Being back at Lax Kxeen Elementary in Prince Rupert was heartfelt and exciting! My first day was very welcoming and nostalgic. It felt like I had never left. Seeing the cheerful excited faces of my Kindergarten students was priceless. I had lunch with them every day throughout my four week practicum. I wanted to continue hearing about their daily adventures and it was such a nice way to be able to still connect with them.
It was nice to have a Pro-D day my first week as it gave my CT and I a chance to discuss my teaching schedule, review lesson plans, collaborate. I also took the time to review the IEP’s in the class and look at assessments that my CT does.
Another amazing experience had was teaching two classes for a couple lessons. My class had little buddies with the grade 2 class next door so I led the ADST egg drop lessons and an art Mandala activity where we walked to the courthouse and the students got to create a variety of designs with their buddies. At first, I was nervous to teach two classes at once, I wasn’t sure what to expect with behaviours with the other grade 2 class. Once explained the egg activity, I noticed that the grade 2 students were quite focused and put up their hands when they had questions. I started to get comfortable working with them and as the two classes spent more time together I felt more comfortable leading the building egg lesson and toward the end of practicum I led both classes on a walk to the court house. Although it was challenging speaking louder outside with two classes and trying to capture everyone’s attention, I think it was a empowering experience as I got to try something new and even though it was scary, I chose to continue teaching both classes.
Prepping and lesson planning reflections
I noticed that whenever I was at the stores, walking around town or just sitting at cafe’s doing some prep, I would have “aha” moments for lesson plans. It was great to also share my lesson ideas with my friends who aren’t teachers but have children and they gave me some creative suggestions and feedback.
Any free time I had after school, I spent connecting with resources in town. I was trying to do a tinkering activity where the students would be using broken electronics (mouse, computer monitors, laptops, cell phones) and figuring out how to open them and understand what parts have which functions. I reached out to a few places in town. One café owner gave me one computer monitor. I also reached out to the school district technology department. They said they were not able to give the material away due to inventory concerns. Another tech store owner stated that he had just gotten rid of his broken electronics. He did suggest that I connect with him in the fall as he may have some electronics for me to use then. Unfortunately this lesson did not work out during this practicum however, by connecting with various community members, I learned that everyone was genuinely helpful and it reminded me the power of community. I will be connecting with the one tech store owner in the fall for my last practicum.
On my second day of practicum, I chose to do a carousel activity with the class. I put up four big poster papers around the room with the four main subjects that I would be teaching (LA, math, ss, science) and the topics as headings. I asked the students to write down what they already knew about the topic and what they were curious about. I used the feedback from this activity to adjust my lessons accordingly based on what the students wanted to learn about. I think this is a great strategy to support inquiry based learning and focus on student centered learning.
It was really interesting to see how the students did with one of my literacy activities where the students worked in pairs and took turns explaining to each other how to draw the object that they received. Each student got a chance to use their voice to communicate descriptions to their partners. I demonstrated on the board as I gave directions to my coaching teacher on what to draw. I descriptions such as “draw a rectangle in the middle of the page. On the right side of the rectangle connect a tall rectangle vertically”. I gave suggestions to the students to be descriptive with saying small, big, wide, long and describing the shape using objects. I assessed student ability to communicate and give directions to their peers. I noticed some interesting techniques students were using and ways to describe the shapes and lines that I did not even think of.
My class had pen pals with the other school in the district, Pineridge I love this concept. The students wrote to each other in letter format and then at the end of the year they would be meeting at Butze rapids for a picnic together. What a nice way to connect and chat about their letters. I love that even though we are in a technology advanced society, rituals such as writing pen pal letters are still being valued and reinforced in schools. This is a practice I would like to implement in my future class! I got to help the students read the letters they received from their pen pals and afterwards, they responded back to them. I helped them with the introduction heading and thinking of questions they could ask them about the summer.
During one of my LA lessons, I wanted to try a Taboo game. I first had the students work in groups of 4-5 and each group received a word and they had to come up with a pose together that represented that word. Afterwards, we tried Taboo, it was challenging as students were waiting a while until their turn, it was getting too loud so I pivoted and changed the activity back to the first one which was more successful. Reflecting on this afterward, I noticed that I was able to recognize what was working and what was not. A lot of the students seemed to enjoy both games. It was amazing to see how students were engaging in the posing game with one another and having a lot of laughs. I saw great teamwork, leadership skills, and communication amongst all the groups.
For jump rope for heart day I was a station leader with this cup activity where students would read the prompt on the cup (5 lunges, 5 skaters, 5 jumping jacks) and then complete the exercise. Afterwards, they would stack the cup to see which team finished the tower the fastest. I had to pivot, as it was getting windy so instead of building the cup tower upwards, the students spread the cup on the table creating the tower on the table upwards. This was another experience I enjoyed during my practicum, as I got to have all the students from the school join my group for this activity. Each activity was 10 minutes long and the students did a great job listening to the instructions as I explained the activity.
