September TwentyTwo, Two Thousand + Ten

How on earth did it get to this date? I am a little shocked that it has been so long since I have managed to get on here.

A few things have happened since I came on here and updated you all.

Firstly, I have had a wonderful six weeks of completing my internship. I have been asked several times about my casual number and am extremely excited about being able to teach the class in November!

I had my meeting with my adviser and MT. I was told that I am far too hard on myself throughout my evaluation and explained that I wanted to continue to try and achieve great things whilst finishing my internship.

I am about to get my casual DET number and really enjoy discussing this with the AP and Principal. I enjoy that they are recognising me now as a teacher, not just as a student teacher on their internship. I feel that by showing my confidence in not only myself but within how I am teaching and talking with the students asserts this to them.

Tomorrow I need to take my program in for the AP to look over as seeing though I am teaching daily, it is probably better for her to view my own program. Which is exciting and worrying at the same time.

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Today went very well. Again I am noticing that after my discussion with MT I am not raising my voice anymore and attempting to talk over the students. A lot of the students will just notice exactly what I am doing and listen. I feel that come November and having that experience just me with them, will open my eyes to new teaching strategies.

As we were in the IWB room for a session before lunch, it was great to get the children out of the classroom but for me as a teacher, I don't feel that there is enough time to go and sit and fiddle with the IWB and find new and exciting tools and games to do with the children. Instead you spend around 5-15 minutes searching and logging in for what you need. I feel that this would work best if there was a folder with interactive links already set up for teachers to come in and access would be beneficial time wise.

That's all I have time for today, I am off to make resources.

September Seven, Two Thousand + Ten

It has been a little while since I managed to get this updated. It is always on my to do list of an afternoon but I just never manage to get here, but I don't manage to get anything else done either. I feel that this is definitely something that I need to work on. I need to ensure that I am getting these reflections done and ready at the end of each day of my internship, for me I think that this can be a resourceful tool for me as a beginning teacher to look at the changes that I am making over the duration of the ten week period.

So, today being seven thirty in the morning, I have already figured out exactly what needs to be done today and I will make sure I cross off all these on this list:

:: Make the resources I need for the rest of the term
:: Write up any individual plans that need to be done
:: Finish typing up observations and work sample annotations
:: Print off everything that I have typed up
:: Show the linking between the planning and the observations
:: Go through and begin to fill in the areas of the portfolio and PIP that I can

I am a person who loves to write lists. I find that I can achieve more when I have everything written in front of me and I know exactly what needs to be done.

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 Twenty-One, Two Thousand + Ten

I forgot to mention the other day that for ECH416 I received 10 out of 10 for the online quiz component.

I will add my study notes up over the next few days for this assignment.

I really like that ECH416 gives you the option to decide what you want to do for the other two 45% assignments. While I do generally go better in exam-style situations, I don't feel that I want to this time. I have read over the essay topics and feel that these are better suited to me and my future within ECE.

Today I am spending relaxing, trying to shake this nasty cough. Though I dare say that sometime today I will write up the one page document for the teachers on ECHP444 to look over in relation to the portfolio.

August Twenty, Two Thousand + Ten

The first week of the internship has officially finished. I did a full day of teaching today. I notice that when my MT is off and there is a casual on the class there are different class dynamics.

The day went well and I spoke to two parents in the morning and another in the afternoon. When I compare this to my time within Early Childhood settings, I notice a huge difference. Parents don't tend to come and talk with teachers unless there is something important that needs to be discussed.

I feel that if it was only me in the room, without the other teacher I think that the children would have been a little less noisy during times. Though I feel that even though this wasn't the case, that I was able to manage the children's behaviour effectively but I need to find new ways to do this, rather than using hands on heads.

When I had the children draw their parrots {the letter of the week is Pp}. They were a little confused at first as I had given them a blank sheet of paper and a number of bright oil pastels and crayons. Once we went through what a parrot has, its features, I was in awe and amazed at some of the fantastic parrots that the children had drawn. I sometimes feel that creativity can be limited as we can assume that they cannot do something, rather than allowing the children to try.

I am finding that having the children lay down of an afternoon, and be very still, works extremely well for allowing the children to relax after lunch. I think that I need to continue to use this.

On my other blog and its facebook fan page I put out a question about reward systems/charts and asked others what they use and what works for them. When a lot of them were specific to their own children, I asked if any were K-2 teachers and what they used. I was pleasantly surprised when I received a comment and it was of where she used dollars within the classroom and writes on them what they are awarded for and at the end of four weeks they are counted and a prize award to the table with the most dollars.

I have decided to use this within my classroom as a reward system so that I am able to see what works and doesn't work whilst I am there. Though rather than being a group effort for their tables {as they are very rarely at their tables} I will be doing individual ones. I just need to figure out what to use for each person to hold the money. Also I will be colour coding the notes, so yellow will be for listening, red for working with others, etc. I am thinking that once each child gets to ten, I will then give out an award stating what they had achieved over the last ten dollars. I feel that this will provide a talking point between home and school, and will be more than a lucky dip.

During recess and lunch, both today and yesterday I had the opportunity to speak and discuss with a number of different staff. I spoke with a casual teacher, as she has just finished her degree and was great to see a recently graduated teacher that I can discuss with about a number of different things. Also with other members on the teaching team at the school. I am really feeling a part of the team.

This weekend I will be preparing for the week ahead as I am now planning for everyday as well as the one page document to hand in to the unit conveyor.

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 Eleven, Two Thousand + Ten

This morning I visited the primary school. The first hour is based around literacy. The second hour is my MT's RFF time.


When we were gathering the children from the cola, D's mother came up to me to ask about the homework and why it hadn't came home or questioning whether her son had left it at after-school-care. I explained that the homework books were yet to go out and that they will go out this afternoon. She was happy to hear this. I wonder if any of the other parents were wondering where the homework was as it does go out of a Tuesday afternoon. I am glad that some of the parents I am able to have contact with of a morning or an afternoon and am looking forward to extending on these relationships being built.

During the first hour, I worked with the children once they were back to their desks and developed their stories/sentences about the weather with them. Since working with them in March 2010 {and throughout term two and three} I am pleasantly surprised at just how far some of the children are coming along.

Once the children had left with the relief teacher, I began to discuss with the MT different parts of the day and went through a very brief outline of the routine. Most is the same from when I was completing the practicum from March 2010, though with the incorporation of the 3L's program, there have been some changes made.

I explained to my MT that I am able to teach from any date. As my teacher will be away on Friday during my first week, I offered to plan for that day and implement for the entire day with the relief teacher. I will also begin to implement different literacy based activities on Thursday morning also.

I am excited of being within the classroom again. We also discussed the difference in expectations, from the previous practicum to now, being an intern. And I completely agree. Now I feel far more confident within myself as a beginning teacher within a classroom and am looking forward to the opportunity to again work with this MT and class to further develop my own skills.

To Do List For Friday:
: Take photographs of the room
: Have the permission note ready to be signed + looked over by the K-2 Supervisor
: Go through my assignment + see what needs to be done over the weekend
: Observe the children
: Go over my MT's planning formats and duplicate at home
: Develop ideas for literacy groups
: Develop a plan for Friday and show to MT on Wednesday
: Go through 3L's with MT

August Seven, Two Thousand + Ten

After the on campus session I am feeling excited and happy that I elected to complete this unit.

In the next fortnight, I need to:
: visit the school
: get the bee-bots
: plan out everything
: start the internship
: organise a system for the portfolio
: develop questions for the PIP
: do ECH416 quiz
: do ECHP444 first work-in-progress

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.

August Four, Two Thousand + Ten

After reading through the unit outline I became a little confused as in relation to the assignment. I like the idea of having only one assignment broken into the portfolio and into the research part, but I just need to double check that the research just gets put into the section it corresponds to?

I feel that looking further into section four or seven would be where my main interests lie.

For four, I love the idea of researching different pedagogy and implementing a more play-based environment. This is because my MT is using the 3L's and I would love to set up the room in stations/areas that promote literacy and numeracy {as well as other areas of the syllabus} that the children can access for extended periods of time during the morning with minimal supervision. This would allow me to utilise the ECE background and explore the uses within the classroom.

In relation to seven, I feel that looking at what role developing professional knowledge through in-services and own research has within the school environment. This would be more insightful for myself as a beginning teacher.

Overall, I feel quite confident with my choice of completing the internship and am grateful that I am only completing one other unit at the same time.

August Two, Two Thousand + Ten

I visited the primary school today. It was fantastic to see the children again and my MT. I really appreciate having her as my mentor for the internship.

Even though I only spent two hours there, I felt at ease. Like this is something I was always meant to do.

Together with my teacher, we discussed ways to modify the concept of the 'office'. My MT is undertaking the 3L's program and this is a suggestion from the program. Though as the children are in a routine and beginning to implement the 'office' area was difficult. So I suggested having a mailbox, where the children can write to me and I can respond.

The teacher is currently using pictures to prompt story writing and I found that this worked well and the children were able to come up with very detailed sentences, though I assisted by writing the sentence as they told me.

I feel that once I am in the room teaching again, I will work on these two aspects of the 'office' area to a point where the children are able to work without assistance.

I feel that the 3L's program would be a fantastic tool (when used from the beginning of the school year) and am looking forward to being shown the information from my MT.

Teaching is not something that I take lightly - teaching and the ability to teach is a gift.