Day Four - Prep for first and second lesson

I completed the preparation for my first lesson last night where I will be teaching this with my assessor in the room on Tuesday at 10am. They will observe for 1 hour and then debrief Mrs C (my Supervising Teacher) and then me.

Action: Today I learnt that there was some testing done on some of the kids and that if they read off red or green paper that it helps their reading. Last year they used blue paper. - must look into this.

I also approached another teacher today to see if I could observe her teaching as she was always well liked by the kids. She was stand-offish and I was not sure why. Seems like some of the teachers are concerned with others in their class - it was explained really well by one of the heads of school that I spoke to this about - they spend their whole days by themselves dealing with day to day issues, changes and lots of kids - so they are so self-sufficient that another adult in that routine can be too much.

I agreed with Mrs C that I should do a lesson before Tuesday so I am practiced. So I spent 30 minutes this afternoon and some of tonight putting together the first lesson for HSIE on Government.

I also spent about an hour today printing and then cutting up photos for my Mathematics lesson on Tuesday - and I was lucky, as I just took time out of the class to do it. Normally I would have to do this at home as I would not have time.

Two other things that went on that I forgot to mention when I first posted this ... Mrs C asked the kids to write a "reflection" on their recent Aztec module that they did. The key to this learning was that they self-directed it - there was little "telling" from the teacher - the kids decided how they wanted to research and what they wanted to research and present back in terms on the topic.Mrs C first showed her own reflection on the topic and how the kids coped. Some (10%) got how to write a Reflection quickly but most struggled. We brainstormed ideas with them and I gave them "Who, what, where, when, how" questions to answer for their reflection. They were better after that but many still struggled (20%).

Lastly, Mrs C organises her days in baskets. She puts all of her Monday work that the kids will go through into the "Monday" basket. If she does not get through it she moves it to the "Tuesday" basket. Nice idea - I like it.

Looking forward to next week ... First and second lesson to do, Book Week, Athletics Carnival Thursday and Grandparents day on Friday.