Wednesday, December 15, 2010

First day as a teacher!!

So today went really really realy well =]
i got to sit in on Harimayas grade 8 class that she had to teach and i gave my feed back and so on. then it came to my turn.
I was teaching grade seven.
I chose the topic of animals!
to start off the class i decided to do a little game.
i brought a funny blue-ish ball with little bumps all over it.
I gave the instructions:

"listen carefully everyone. i am going to say what my favorite animal is in this way : 'my favorite animal is a cat. what is yours?' then i will toss the ball to one of you. the person who catches the ball will then say what their favorite animal is in the same way, and then give the ball to one of their fellow students. "

the kids loved this lol.
i gave myself about three minutes for this warmer type thing, and then moved on to setting the context of the class.
i gave the following instructions:

"I am going to draw on the board some pictures. while i am drawing, you all will try to guess what the pictures are of. "

I then drew pictures of a lion, a gorilla, and a tiger. for each animal i wrote everything the students said about each one around the picture; i did not tell them whether their answers were correct or not i was just trying to gain some knowledge of what they knew.
I gave myself about 7 to 8 mins for this.

I moved on to some extensive reading things, just to get them reading and talking with their friends.
i gave the following instructions:

"ok now i would like the two of you in the back to move up here and fill in this empty bench. you will be paired with the person you are sitting next to. I will be handing out some pictures i drew, and some text. in the bottom right hand corner the pictures have letters on them from A-E, and the text is numbered 1-5. along with these, i will be giving you an answer sheet. in one column it says 'picture letter' and in the next it says 'text number.' on the top of these sheets you will notice your team animal.  what i want you all to do within your groups, is to read the text and match it with the pictures. you will write your answers on the answer sheet i just explained to you, then when you are finished i will collect the answer sheets. when they have all been collected, i will give the correct answers."

while they were doing their things, i was making a chart on the board. it said their team name on the left side and on the top was the picture letter. (after doing this i also went around and talked with them and gave them some hints if they needed any. i also re explained the directions for them. just wanted to give myself some time with each group to show them that i was interested in what they had to say.) i made a grid and when they gave me their answer sheets i put in the text number that they had given for each picture. after that i gave the correct answers and then gave the teams points for each answer they got right. (this was just so that they got more competitive and had a drive to actually do the lesson!)  I gave myself about 8-9 mins for this.

Next i wanted to do some more intensive reading, so that they would get the chance to read aloud to the class.
i gave the following instructions:

"What we are going to do now is read the text i gave to you. I will read a line first, and then i will choose one of you to continue where i left off. are we ready? lets begin. Lions are carnivores...."

lol they loved this one too. which is weird because i remember my spanish class and i hated doing stuff like this haha. they appreciate learning language more tho which i love. makes my job easier =]

when we had finished reading the text, i gave them a set of true or false questions, some complete the sentence questions, and just some other Q and A type questions. I told them to remain in their same groups and raise their hands if they think they had the answer.
hahaha ohhhhh man! this one was hilarious. they were very quiet at first and when they realized i was putting points by the team names, lmao they reaaally got into it! some would jump up and shout the answer! oh i loved it. i ended up just giving every team points because they were all saying the same answer after one person said it, making it seem like they knew hahah.
that was ok for the complete the sentence and Q and A but i had them tell me where they found the answer for the T/F questions and if the answer was false tell me what the correct answer was. just so that they would actually learn something. I gave myself about 12-14 mins for this.

finally i wanted to end the class on a more free topic, only slightly related to our main topic of animals.
i wrote this on the board:
"Write a small paragraph on what your favorite animal is and what you know about it."
then underneath i gave some hints or starters to get them writing faster like what color is it? what does it eat? and so on.
i gave abut 7 mins for this. three to write and four for them to read out loud what they wrote.

i ended up finsihing the class with about three extra mins =] yeeee!
and my teacher was observing and said that i did an excellent job and only had a few things to point out =]

and now i have to teach another class at a totally different school with a totally new topic and lesson plan.... starting class at 8am... ohh man this is some tough work!

3 comments:

  1. wow sound like you really aced this first assignment...They havent given you much time to prepare your second one,,,,How do you get to and from the different schools...Does the school provide transportation or are they centrally
    located and you either take a cab or walk...
    great job Twinkie Winks
    The Gramps

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  2. hey gramps
    the school pays for our taxi rides to all the teaching locations and the lesson plans are not that hard to do if you just sit down and really crank out some concentration lol and that suprisingly is not hard for me.... i guess i never gave myself the chance to show it hahaha!

    i think ive grown up. im a big kid now!!

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comments are much appreciated =]