Hi everyone! Welcome back to my blog! Thank you so much for returning for another exciting entry. Today, I am posting my first assignment for Second Year Teacher's Education. Not gonna lie, the first week back was a little bit hectic. Only returning to school for six weeks before another evaluated Practicum is busy! There is a lot of work to cover before heading back to our Junior Placements, but I am up for the task! Our first assignment was for our Teaching Junior Divisions Part II- Social Studies and Health and Physical Education. We had to search for a resource to share with our Social Studies or Health and Physical Education class. The resource I chose to focus on was the interactive website Go Noodle. This is an excellent with tons of active videos for students. The videos vary from dance and sports to stretching and kinesthetic exercises. It is a great site for teachers to use as body breaks or for inclement weather activities. Go Noodle engages many different types of learners with fun hosts, animated cartoons, and various interactive videos. I use Go Noodle with my Junior students currently. They love collecting the points to open bonus material. All videos are tailored for Grades K-6. Below, I will link my Google Doc with a more in-depth analysis of this fantastic resource. I will also link the website so you can try Go Noodle in your class. Thank you again for reading my latest blog post. Please comment below if you have used Go Noodle in your class. Also, what is your favourite video? I love "Pop See Ko" and "Body Spell!" And be sure to follow me on Twitter (@cstar012) for more updates and photos of my continuing journey through Teacher's College!!
See you again for another blog post! Miss. Starkey :)
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Hello everyone! Welcome back to my blog! I took a break over the summer to relax and enjoy the sunshine. Now I am back to my blogging game :) I can't wait to share all about my Year 2 experience. For Year 2, we are in a Junior classroom. I have to admit, I was extremely nervous before beginning placement. I absolutely loved my Primary placement, and the older kids sort of scared me. It's a lot more group work and rubric based projects. I was a little anxious before beginning. I was lucky to get placed with an Associate Teacher that I already knew. I knew right away we would get along. During the summer, we brainstormed different ideas for projects and assignments. I purchased some Junior Level chapter books to read to the students for a fun read-aloud. I also did some research into the Junior level curriculum and brainstormed some ideas for lessons. Nothing prepared me for the first day of school. I was so excited to meet my new class of eager young learners. I have a smaller number of students this year, so I learned all the names of my students on the first day. I greeted each of my students with a firm handshake and a welcome. We started out the morning smoothly with ice breaker games, playing "Two Truths and a Tale". The students were very interested to learn new things about their fellow classmates and teachers. I even learned something new about my AT. In our afternoon class, we began our exciting week of Inspirational Math. This is a program designed by the Standford University and Professor Jo Boaler to activate student thought and begin Math conversations with students. These activities consist of a video promoting a positive mindset when approaching Math, a shared activity, and a small group exercise. We finished the day writing about our summer holidays, creating a "Summer Selfie". First day down, many more to go! The rest of my first week went so fast! I couldn't believe how quickly Friday came. The week was anything but boring. The students created beautiful works of Art with their rainbow name tags, introduced themselves to their classmates with an "All About Me" assignment and we began our exciting Science unit about Pulleys and Gears. I tasked the students to build pulley systems using a fixed pulley and a moveable pulley. My students tried to lift pencil cases, water bottles, and even a chair using their homemade pulley systems. I loved hearing discussions about the amount of force used to move the load and brainstorming the placement of pulleys to create the easiest lift. I was so proud of my students :) The most exciting part of the week happened on Wednesday as the students worked on Day 2 of the Week of Inspirational Math program. The students began by interpreting a graph on the Smart Board then were asked to create a graph of their own. My AT and I were taking photos and tweeting pictures of the students hard at work. On my way home that evening, I received a message on Twitter from Jo Boaler herself! I was speechless! She was asking me to use my photos from Twitter to put in the Youcubed newsletter. I was so touched that she reached out to me. I immediately said yes (after approval from my AT and Principal, of course!) By the next morning, the newsletter was published with our photos at the bottom. This also happened the same day the site received 2 million views! Our little school would be shown all over the world! We showed the students on Thursday, and they were all thrilled to be "internet famous!" I've got to say, not at all what I expected to happen in my first week of Practicum. I will link the article below if you wish to view the Youcubed newsletter. I have one more full week with my students before returning to classes at the University. We will be constructing more Pulley systems this week, celebrating International Dot Day, and sharing our symbols we created earlier this week for our Religion tree. I will be updating the blog with more anecdotes from my class. The best part of the week was hearing students share how excited they were to be back at school and how much fun they were having. One of my students told me on Friday that he couldn't believe how fast the week went because he was having so much fun. I couldn't believe it either. I hoped you enjoyed reading my blog entry. I have been wanting to write this all weekend. I'm so glad to finally share this with all of you. Please comment below with your favourite first week of school stories. Also, follow me on Twitter to see my teaching journey in action. I just passed 100 followers! Yay! I am incredibly appreciative for all the likes and retweets. I love sharing how talented my students are. I will link my Twitter below: Have a great week,
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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