First Week Teaching

The first week is almost over!! This week has been exciting and a little overwhelming. I am starting to love my 4th and 5th graders and I get along with my cooperating teacher so well! We both have the same kind of humor (sarcastic) and she has been very open with letting me have complete freedom in the classroom. I have not previously worked with this age so I was surprised at how funny, clever, and articulate these students are. And they are definitely respectful! This week has been all about observing and going over the standards and possible lessons I will be teaching. I will soon be starting to work on language arts and social studies, then later science, and finally math (I asked that math be the last thing I take over as its the thing I'm least confident in). My teacher is the only teacher in the upper levels (4th and 5th grades) that uses novels in language arts.. all other teachers use the work books. This makes me extremely happy as this is how I want to teach and will allow me to practice and perfect my style of teaching literature circles, read alouds, discussions, and guided reading with novels. She also has the students do a few programs called Battle of the Books and Read-O where they read all genres of books- making the students get out of their comfort zone of only fiction (which also makes me very happy). I have been surprised at how simliar 4th and 5th grade standards are (at least Dodea standards) and the textbooks are almost identical in some cases. This makes me more comfortable as I was worried at first. My teacher also picks and chooses various assignments from both 4th and 5th grade books so all standards are covered and the students are prepared for the next grade. I love my teacher's teaching styles and I hope to pick up on and continue learning from her and the students. I still have zero wifi at the dorm and we do not even have student accounts at our schools yet. Pray for this soon as it is so difficult to keep in contact with home or do homework and lesson plans this way! I have realized how often I take internet for granted and I have repented.. We are going back to Cambridge this weekend and I am happy! (especially for more waffles!)

Love Love Love