And on to the third....

We have been in practicum for two weeks already!! This week was much better than last!

I have been trying to work on my classroom management, and get those certain students to listen to me and take me seriously as a teacher... and its working! I have been introduced to the ice cream scoop and a coffee mug... when you bang it together its the worst noise in the world but gets the BEST results! This is my new technique to obtain all of the students attention and to make it quite in the class.

All my math lessons this week have been group work, so they all really enjoyed that and are actually excited for their math review this Monday (which I gave them a hint it's a going to be a fun game). 

We started "the outsiders" for their novel study this week, and it has been going GREAT. All of the students love the book so they are all ahead of the chapters I have assigned, and are all veryyyyy engaged! :) To get them thinking of the different themes and ideas of the novel I conducted a "graffiti exercise" with them, which went so well my AT did the same thing for the grade 8's the next period. I am really looking forward to continuing this with the students and listening to their thoughts and ideas on not only the book but how it connects to their lives.

I also started to teach the new geography unit which is on regions. The two of us (my AT and I) co-taught the lesson and it went really well! I started off with the 'minds on' which was a picture book... and let me tell you, grade sevens LOVE picture books! They were all so engaged and didn't take their eyes off, especially the hsp students who are normally more difficult to get to concentrate. 

All in all I feel practicum only gets better. I am starting to become very confident in my teaching abilities and learning lots but having so much fun while doing it. I hope you all are having the same feelings. Have a great weekend and rest up for week three!

-Sam