![]() Hi everyone! I had the immense opportunity to sit on a panel of Year 2 Teacher Candidates to share our Practicum experiences and helpful tips with Year 1 students. It was great to be able to share my experience with new Teacher Candidates as I had two amazing placements. I hope the new Teacher Candidates learned something new from our presentation. I thought it would be a good idea to share our presentation slides on my blog in hopes this reaches all new Teacher Candidates about to embark on their first Practicums. I will link below the slide presentation to view. Take note of all the clever memes used, ha ha! I want to take the time to wish all Year 1 Teacher Candidates the best of luck on their first Practicum placement. Just have fun and enjoy the time you spend with your students. Feel free to share out this post to any other Teacher Candidates! And comment below with other wise advice for new student teachers.
Thanks again for returning to my blog! Follow me on Twitter (@cstar012) for more updates and posts as I wrap up the final months of Teacher's College. Graduation is almost in sight, and I am very excited to start my teaching career :) Take care, Miss. Starkey :)
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![]() Good morning readers! Welcome back to my blog! I hope you have been enjoying your weekend. I love posting blogs on a Sunday because Sundays are lazy and cozy days to chill on the couch and read, or watch Netflix :) I wanted to post links to my go-to Lesson Plan and Unit Plan templates for today's blog. I volunteered to lead a workshop at the University of Ottawa about Practicum survival tips and tricks for Year 1 Teacher Candidates. I was really excited to share about my two Practicum placements and what I learned from each. I have a few tips I picked up along the way that I believe will help Year 1 Candidates as they begin their first Practicum. Someone asked me if I would provide a good Lesson Plan and Unit Plan template for Year 1 students that they can use. To be honest, I googled my templates because I wanted a simple model to follow. What I like about the template I use is it's easy to add things onto such as Essential Questions. My template is something that works for me because the layout is clean and easy to follow. I am also able to reflect on my lessons and make adjustments for future practice. I will link below my Lesson Plan and Unit Plan templates to view. I welcome anyone who wishes to copy or use mine as a guideline. I hope these templates will help anyone on the hunt for a good Lesson Plan or Unit Plan. Please feel free to share among your colleagues and friends. I want to take the opportunity to wish any Year 1 Teacher Candidate about the embark on their first Practicum the best of luck! Have fun and enjoy the time you get to spend with your students :)
Please comment below with any Lesson Plan or Unit Plan tips and tricks you want to share! And, of course, keep coming back to my blog for future posts! I know I say this all the time, but follow me on Twitter @cstar012 for updates and anecdotes from Teacher's College. Till next time, Miss. Starkey :)
Hello everyone and Happy 2017!!
This is my first blog post for the new year, and my first blog entry in quite some time. I am sorry to neglect my blog, but Practicum kept me quite busy. I had such an amazing experience with my Grade 4s and 5s over the months of November and December. I learned many news things about myself as an educator and as a person. I wanted to share in today's blog post my favourite moments from my last Practicum. I hope you enjoy reading, and please remember to comment below with favourite memories from your class in December. ~Teaching Science~ I was able to teach both Grade 4 and Grade 5. I had such a blast exploring "Light and Sound" and the "Human Body" with my class. I am a firm believer in hands-on activities to engage students and get the conversations flowing. I used a lot of hands-on activities for my lessons, including creating Robot Fingers to explore the Musculoskeletal system, making an interactive Digestive system to explore the different organs, setting up Prism and Mirror stations to bend light, and going on a Light Scavenger Hunt to discover the properties of Light and Sound. Throughout all my activities, my students were engaged and discovering new things! Science was my favourite Unit to teach :)
~Doing STEM Challenges~
I loved participating in STEM with my students! It was interactive, student-driven, and brain teasing. STEM stands for Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math. These challenges are designed to integrate all these areas of study. My favourite STEM challenge we did was our Cup Stacking Challenge. I led the STEM challenge where the students were split into teams and instructed to make the largest cup tower using 38 cups. The catch- the teams only had one minute to build their towers. The class was chaotic! Students were discussing with their teams the best strategies to stack the cups, and figuring out how many cups to lay on the bottom. Once the towers were built, the teams shared with the class how many cups they successfully stacked. Using those numbers, we needed to calculate the mean, median, and mode for the entire class. The students had a blast doing this STEM challenge, and I think I earned some extra brownie points with some :)
~Participating in Extracurriculars~
This was my first time where I was able to participate with different clubs and sports at my Placement school. It was a dream of mine to participate in the school choir as my Mom is also a choir director. The teacher who led the choir was amazing in allowing me to co-lead some of the songs. I accompanied my students to a performance and led a song all by myself. It was also my first time co-coaching a school sport. My Associate Teacher and I joined our girls Lacrosse team. We went to a tournament and our students did amazing! I never thought I would become a crazed sports fan, but I was coaching and shouting encouragement with my AT. It was a great experience to feel truly immersed in my school community.
~Fill A Heart~
This moment was one of my proudest. My Associate Teacher and I taught our class and another group sign language. We wanted to do something special for an upcoming assembly and my AT suggested we teach the children sign language to the song "Fill a Heart" by Tori Kelly. We spent an entire block and a half on a snow day learning the signs ourselves. Teaching it to our students was so magical. The children picked up on sign language so quickly. They looked and sounded like angels. After that performance, my students wanted to learn everything in sign language! It made so me proud :)
~Attending Ed Innovation2016!~
This was such an amazing weekend of workshops and networking. I was able to learn so much more about integrating technology and innovative thinking in the classroom. I met so many new people, and got to be in the same room as Astronaut Chris Hadfield! I learned how Google Cardboard is changing the face of education and how to integrate applications such as Green Screen, Plickers, and Kahoot in the classroom. My students utilized the Green Screen quite a bit while I was in Practicum. I wrote two blog posts about my experience and takeaways from Ed Innovation 2016 and I will link them below for you to check out:
http://goodmorningmissstarkey.weebly.com/miss-starkeys-corner/ed-innovation-summit-day-1
http://goodmorningmissstarkey.weebly.com/miss-starkeys-corner/ed-innovation-summit-day-2
There are so many memories and moments from my Practicum that I will hold deep in my heart. I want to extend my deepest thanks to my Placement school and all the staff for making my 6 weeks the best! I also want to thank my Associate Teacher, Kyla Marchant for being an excellent mentor to me. She was my guide and support system throughout the entire process. We shared many a laugh during my time there, and I would not want any other AT this year. I am lucky to come out of this Practicum with another close friend. In the same breath, I want to thank Alane Martinuzzi for being like a second mentor teacher to me. Your guidance and support means everything to me. I hope you enjoyed reading this fun blog post! Be sure to check back for more posts. The best way to know when I update is to follow me on Twitter. I will link my page below (@cstar012). Cheers everyone to a happy and memorable 2017! Miss. Starkey :) |
AuthorCaitlin Starkey is a Teacher Candidate from the University of Ottawa. She loves to read, watch movies, and drink lots of hot chocolate. These blog posts are a glance at her lesson plans, personal reflections, and ramblings about everyday observations. Archives
February 2017
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