Week 5 April 8 – 14 nope til today, April 17…

Guess I am so slow getting to my blog that soon I will just do once a month!  Oh dear… they would go on forever… maybe not a good idea!  Thanks for your patience while I sort out my crazy existence and finally getting to my blog.  I was able to do my last post as I was sitting in Killarney rink while Darren had a Steel practice, otherwise I may have not been successful with that one either!

So hockey update….

Trevor has only had Director Cup practices and last week, luckily, they were in Hartney! Yay!  Easy to carpool there!  He has a couple practices this week as well – so at least not too much running around there.

Darren, on the other hand, had his Saturday practice in Killarney and then on Sunday he played in Winnipeg against the Hawks.  Was a fun fast-paced game, but in the end, we lost by one.  He practiced in Brandon on Wednesday then they had the First Annual Steel Invitational Tournament in Brandon on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday (Happy Easter).  We ended up 1-1-2 during round robin play and luckily ended up playing in the consolation against the Hawks (We tied them in the round robin) and beat them!  So we are now 1-1-1 with them – will see what the Winnipeg Tourney brings when we play them again.  I think it is fun playing the same team to see how they stack up against each other, especially when they are fairly evenly met.  So out of the hockey update into…..

BASEBALL SEASON!!!

My “favourite” time of year!  I just love going to the rink one night, then the ball diamond, then back to the rink, then to the ball diamond, then hockey tournaments on the weekends!  SO. MUCH. FUN.  (I hope you catch my sarcasm… cause it is not really fun at all!)  Luckily for us, it has been arranged for both boys to play out of Souris.  Trevor has played there the last 2 years and now that there isn’t enough players to have a Hartney team, Darren can go there too.  Technically, seems like it should work out right?  Boys ball is on Tuesdays and Thursdays… technically one trip, two boys, one long evening??? BUT NO!!!!! That is NOT to be!  One of the diamonds is currently under construction (as well as the D-cup practices messing it up) so Trevor’s practices have been on Monday and Wednesdays.  Technically Darren missed his first practice last week, so this is the first week of true mayhem.  Hopefully I can get Neil to drive some of the days!!  Driving to my student teaching placement then rushing home to drive to Souris immediately, isn’t one of my first choices! However…. The things a mother does for her children….  Good thing you love them unconditionally!

Student Teaching

Well, I still love Kindergarten!  I am not sure that will ever change as it is so much like my first chosen career that I totally loved, I think it would be hard to not love it!  Of course I am very open to checking out other grades to see what kind of challenges happen there, but for now (and only the next 3 weeks) I am truly satisfied!

I have been working on Canada with the kids still.  We learned about French Canada and now we say bonjour, merci, and au revoir to our friends.  We learned about Canadian coins and the symbols on them.  I also did one lesson on other Canadian symbols – I will do the second one tomorrow.  It is definitely beneficial for organizing when you have to plan one lesson and it works for two days!  As for 2D/3D shapes, I finished that up on Wednesday and started measurement with Thursday’s group.  I started with capacity so I could open the water table and let them explore it while I was still in the school.  Will see how that turns out with tomorrow’s group!

Well, I am sure you are sick of reading this by now, so I will sign off, and try to find some pictures to fit in with some of the dribble to mix it up a bit!

TTFN

Connie

GRRR technology – for some reason, my photos have stopped automatically uploading to my dropbox and I have no idea how to get it to work again… will need to try again when I am not so tired… so maybe in June, July, August???? lol

Week 3? well... mostly week 4

Week 3??  Spring Break!

Well…. I have failed my most dedicated “followers” and skipped a week. Frankly, spring break was NOT a break what-so-ever!  The first half of the week, I dedicated to my transcribing job (so I got sort of caught up) and the last half, I spent planning 2 of my 3 units that I am now currently teaching!  Oh, ya… and I did manage to spend a bit of time running my kids around – of course!  Darren had a couple Steel practices and dryland, so I ran him there the first weekend. The second weekend he played hockey in Ochapawace, SK so we got to see the team for the first time this year in action.  They did very well, with 2/2 wins!  Just exhibition games, but nice to have them try out games to see where they need to improve for “important” tournaments! 

Trevor was in Thompson for a D-cup tourney, so Neil went with him on the bus up there! (win for me!) Then Trev went to Souris for an overnight with a friend that lasted 3 days…. Ya… and he’s only 13… I think I’m in trouble!!  On the “fun” side of my life, I finished up my last two hours in the archives.  With any luck, I will get the job again next year and MAYBE manage to finish “organizing” the past issues of The Quill (BU’s student newspaper since 1908), but who knows… I am sure it will be a never-ending task!  I also got to run away for a day with my friend Vicki and her mom.  We hit the big city of Winnipeg for the day and hit it we did!  It was a funtastic day to say the least!

Week 4 – hehehe

So I started my teaching units this week.  SO MUCH FUN!  I am doing Canada and 2D/3D shapes right now. Canada will last my entire placement and 2D/3D shapes I am just doing 4 lessons then switching up to measurement!  Being with young kids and teaching them is exactly where I need to be. My soul feels complete. Kindergarten is almost exactly like my day care days, and I LOVED that.  My first two weeks of student teaching, other than my 1 lesson, was mostly just getting to know the kids and routine.  I really appreciated that as getting to know the kids really helps now when I want to get them to pay attention to my “lesson.”  I found that this week I did have trouble a couple days with a couple kids not wanting to join my lesson, but when they realized I didn’t care that they sat out, they did join us after a bit.  I knew that they were looking for attention and when they didn’t get the attention they wanted, they joined the group and were super good listeners!  I have been away from young kids for so long, I wasn’t sure that I still “had it,” but I do!  Whew. 

So Canada!  I introduced them to Canada is our country and Manitoba is our province.  I had videos that I saved to my YouTube channel… and yes, Mike… I listened to you once again (so often you have been right… hmmm lol)…  Being able to save the videos for future use, is very helpful, so having a channel really helps!  The kids really liked the Provinces and Territories of Canada (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gi-UTq0i5so&list=PL063KLrkE-Z1ViY2hsOBqRYEP1h-lbInX&index=2) that I found.  Incorporating videos/songs through ICT sure inhibits my willingness to sing to the kids!  Even though I do it, I probably shouldn’t! lol  We spent some time finding Canada in North America on a large floor map, worked on being “proud Canadians” and practiced singing O Canada and we actually learned some French!!  The kids were pretty excited and listened super well to the French videos and we will continue to say “bonjour,” “merci,” and “au revoir” to our friends!

2D/3D shapes

This week we got through the 2D shapes and one group started 3D shapes.  During center time at the end of the day, I was very pleased that some of the kids actually got out the academic centers that I created and played with those instead of choosing the other centers.  I wished I had my phone with me to take some pictures of their 3D creations – perhaps I need to take it with me to the classroom for that reason… hmm… something to think about.  As 2D shapes are “quite boring” as I told the kids, the introduction of the trapezoid, hexagon, and parallelogram interested some of them for sure!  I think I have successfully taught one of the groups that a hexagon is a 6 sided shape.  One step towards differentiation!  Whoop whoop! So next week we will finish up with the 3D shape world and move towards measurement.  So many fun things to teach the kids!  With any luck, I will find a kindergarten job…. but time will tell – maybe my “old” body wouldn’t be able to handle kindergarten for very long… something to think about! Lol

Ok! I think that is enough dribble from me for the time being!  I will try to take some pics to add to the blog so you can see what exactly I have attempted to do with “my” students.

TTFN

Connie

Week 2 -student teaching

Week 2

This week FLEW by!  Last weekend was so busy it feels like I was only at school for one week…however… it was definitely two! So last weekend I spent most of Saturday in Souris while Trevor had a Director cup workout and practice for this weekend’s trip to Thompson – they left this morning from Brandon about 6:30… lucky them!  Meanwhile Darren had his Atom hockey wind up at Chain Lakes!  Chain Lakes is just a dip in the landscape south of town where lots of fun can be had in the winter sledding as there is a fire pit and a picnic shelter there.  The lake itself is nothing too spectacular, but I believe some people do go there and boat in the summer.  It is not deep and there are definitely no fish there to catch, so we just occasionally go there in the winter.  The kids had a fantastic time there as they sledded for oh, about 6 hours! I am sure they stopped occasionally for a hot dog or drink, but it doesn’t sound like they did that for long!  When Darren came home, his face was burned…. Sunburn, windburn… who knows….  A couple hours after being in the house, he said his face felt like it was swelling… and so it did!  This is what he looked like in the morning…

Not so good!  He missed his Steel practices that day as 1. He couldn’t see and 2. There is NO way he would have been able to manage at all!  I gave him Benadryl and put tea bags, cold cloths, aloe vera on his face and I think the only thing that worked was time!

This is what he looked like that evening.

Still not so good!

Monday he went to school and wore sunglasses all day as his eyes were so sensitive!  But by Tuesday, he was pretty much back to looking like his old self!  Thank goodness!

Other than a couple practices this week, student teaching and editing papers kept me busy!

Student Teaching highlights

I am very thankful that I was able to sit in on some parent-teacher interviews this week.  My CT is very good at relaying positive information to her parents about their children’s academic or social learning skills.  As curriculum goals for kindergarten are quite simple, most children are able to reach the goals set forth.  Also, some great teaching helps those kids who do struggle a bit!

My faculty supervisor came to watch me on Wednesday so I planned a lesson for her observation pleasure – well, maybe pleasure!  My topic was colour mixing so totally fun stuff to teach as well as learn!  I was able to have a practice run on Tuesday to see if it would be successful in the least before my supervisor watched me on Wednesday.  I explained to both groups of kids beforehand that my teacher was coming to watch me to see if I was going to be a good teacher or not just so they were aware what was going to happen.  My Tuesday group went really well!  Some of them already had a good understanding of colour mixing, but regardless, I feel like it was a successful run.  Wednesday’s group went exceptionally well!  The kids were 100% attentive and seemed to enjoy the lesson and ignored the fact that my teacher was there, so that was good!  It was so cute on Thursday as one of the girls from Tuesday asked me how it went with my teacher!  Such a thoughtful kindergartener!

So for my lesson I first read a book called Mouse Paint by Ellen Stoll Walsh (ISBN-0-15-256025-4) to check their learning about colour mixing.  This book is so cute!  It’s about 3 mice who find paint and end up dancing in the puddles creating new colours.  Then we did an experiment to see if the mice were right. 

I had the kids sit on the carpet and I did the experiment sitting at a table so they could all see and to ensure that I didn’t spill on the carpet!  The table is one of those “rainbow” tables so it worked quite well. I had all of my supplies ready in a bucket and the transition between the two activities went well.  For this part I had clear glasses, a jug of water, food colouring in primary colours, some milk and black paint, and stir sticks.  I introduced the primary colours first and then we made “predictions” as to what colour would be made when we mixed two.  The food colouring was very concentrated so the yellow looked like it was actually orange.  I introduced the words “concentrated” and “diluted” to the kids and had them repeat the words after I said them.  The kids all sat very well on the carpet watching the “scientist” do “experiments” to see if they would work out.  The black paint did not work really well to show how colours darken, but I explained that that happens when scientists experiment!  Sometimes they need to try again and again and again before it actually works. 

After our colour experiment, I had them paint using water colour blocks to assess their learning.  As many of them had not used the colour blocks before, I demonstrated how to get the brush wet and smear around the block to create the colour and then how to clean their brush after.  I then set up 3 tables where the children shared one set of red, blue and yellow paint blocks but each had their own water cup.  As I walked around the class answering questions and observing their successes, I was able to see which students understood the concept of colour mixing.  Also, I have their “pictures” so even though I did not document their understanding, I have it on their picture.  After their initial painting, they could choose to go to morning center time or to continue to paint.  Some did and some didn’t – which enabled another smooth transition! 

Definitely the success to my whole lesson was having all my supplies ready to go and having them at my fingertips.  Needing such an array of different supplies for reading a story to painting pictures took a lot of pre-planning to ensure I had everything ready.  Overall, I feel that my lesson was a success and that after spring break when I do “Canada” and “Measurement and 2D/3D shapes” the kids should be attentive and willing to listen to me!  Here’s hoping!

And now some heaving duty planning is in order….

TTFN

Connie