September One, Two Thousand + Ten

It has been a while since I reflected. Every afternoon that I get home while I am on the internship is usually spent making resources.

I discussed with my MT today how she felt I was going, she replied that I am going great and she has no concerns for me whatsoever. Which is great to hear.

Tomorrow is the K-2 Sports Day so there are no real opportunities to teach the children until the afternoon and generally by then a lot of the students have gone home with their parents. I will be assisting during this though with the checking of the shoes and having the students lining up ready to race.

In relation to my PIP, I submitted my work-in-progress and received some great feedback in relation to this and am working towards refining my question, still. I am a little concerned that this is so as I need to start implementing soon to see if the idea of using learning centres is an suitable approach.

I am yet to start compiling everything else. Though I do not feel too overwhelmed at this stage.

This week and weekend I will be:

:: Adding in all parts of my portfolio that can be added in
:: Researching in relation to my PIP
:: Coming up with the final question for my PIP
:: Finishing off the overview for the time that I will be at the school for my MT to add to her own program
:: Making resources
:: Finishing off the sound booklet I offered to complete

In relation to me as a teacher, I feel that I am becoming more at ease within a classroom and don't feel that I am relying on the teacher. Yes, there are times when I seek the teachers advice, though I do feel that I would be able to run and organise a classroom quite effectively and am getting excited at the prospect of becoming a qualified teacher within the year.

August Eighteen, Two Thousand + Ten

My first official day at the school.

I mostly spoke to my teacher about the changes to the room that I am wanting to implement in order for the 3L's program to run efficiently. I discussed the ideas that I have for literacy groups that will incorporate the other areas of learning whilst still having a focus on literacy for the first two hours.

I also showed the principal the permission notes that I need to hand out in order to enable me to use photographs of the children on the blog that I am using for the university and also within my documentation for university.

It was suggested to write a letter to explain what the permission notes are for and why they are needed. I also typed this up during the RFF time and left a copy on the K-2 Supervisors desk in the afternoon as requested.

As I will be teaching the whole day on Friday, I will be writing up plans tonight and will be showing them to my MT in the morning.

Tonight's To Do List:
:: Write up observations
:: Write up plans for Friday
:: Find resources

August Thirteen, Two Thousand + Ten

Today I spent the entire day at the primary school.

My main aim of today was to introduce the beebots to the children and to gather information. I feel that today I completed both of these objectives well, though a significant number of children were away today so there will be a need to revisit the beebots with the children again.

This morning I ran the beebots outside in the bagroom. As it was the children's first time seeing and using the beebots I elected this space so that the children would not distract the other children that were at the other tables and that the beebots worked with more ease on the lino as opposed to the carpet.

I was quite thrilled with the amount of knowledge and information that the children were gaining and using during the discussions. Just being outside with the children and having my notebook was highly beneficial to me. Though I do think that I will need to record their voices to really hear the discussions and questioning that is taking place. Even though there was one beebot per child, the children were still communicating and discussing what was happening in pairs or just voicing what was happening to all the children. The amount of noise that occurred was incredible, but it was an excited noise and made me realise that this is a fantastic tool for learning.

I noticed that some children were having difficulties grasping the concept of pressing the clear button after they had programmed to refresh the beebots memory or that they needed to programme the beebot then press the go button {some would press the go button first or would programme the beebot but not press go}.

During the first session of fifteen minutes that we had outside, I used this time to have the children get to know what the beebots could do. How they moved and just have fun with them. In the last five minutes, I used the opportunity to have a race with the children, asking them to count how many times they were going to press the up arrow. This allowed the children to use estimation, measurement and space.

During the second session of fifteen minutes, I used the first five minutes for the children to just re-play with the beebots, recall what we had discussed before moving inside to draw pictures of what the beebots were doing. I also had the children tell me a sentence about this, which was incredible as two children who do not speak very often in class and don't often participate to their full potential latched onto the idea of the beebots and really gained a lot from just those 30 minutes.

The rest of the day consisted of sport, news, mathematics and then music and movement in the afternoon. I ran the news + mathematics session. Similar to how I did when I was there back in March. After sport I am noticing that a few of the children are just very hard to get back into work mode. Therefore, I am going to either find mathematics based games for that session or we will do science which is more hands on and would therefore allow the children to use the energy that they still have from sport.

I took photographs in the morning of the room and its set up.

Over the weekend I will be working on my ideas and plans for the coming week as I will be running the literacy groups from Thursday and running the room on Friday with the casual teacher.

There are some issues in relation to privacy and permission notes that I need to email relevant people about.

August Five, Two Thousand + Ten

I visited the school this morning and discussed with my MT ways to improve the two hour literacy block within the mornings. I feel quite confident that this should be my PIP.

I feel great about being within the room and working with my MT.

I am beginning to get excited about the internship.