Jen+P.'s+Practicum+Blog

Jennifer's Practicum Blog  9/14: I am starting my practicum on Monday, 9/19, and I am very excited. The teacher has already been very positive and encouraging and I am looking forward to working with her, her co-teacher, and, most especially, the kids. I expect that I will be very nervous the first day, as I don't really know what the practicum entails. I am not sure what my expectations are or how much involvement I'm going to have. That's ok, because I will probably learn quickly. I can't wait to meet the kids. I observed last semester and had a very enjoyable experience, and that was just from watching them! I can only imagine how fun and educational this experience is going to be and I can't wait to get started.

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 * 9/21: I started my practicum on Monday, and it was a blast!!! The teacher is wonderful, the students are great, and I had a nice first experience. The classroom is organized very well and there is definitely enough room for the rambunctious students to run around and play. Circle time begins the day where the students sing the "what are we wearing song" to learn colors and learn to identify articles of clothing. Then, it's snack time where a student-helper passes out the cups and napkins. They are learning self-help, and learning to pour was the lesson of snack-time. Recess followed snack, and we found worms on the playground. ‍‍I asked them which end they thought the head was, ‍‍ and we had a good time debating that. Then, we came in and they had centers, where the teacher took 3 students at a time and taught them about owls. Then they made and decorated their own owls. I was in the block area, and pretty soon everybody wanted to play with the blocks! I had to stop a few fights over the blocks from breaking out, but overall it was fun. I left right when the children were laying down for their naps. It was so awesome, and I can't wait to go back. ‍‍I'm really glad I like it because I was scared I would be nervous and it maybe would have been too much for me. I still feel that way because the teaching part of it is coming up and I don't really like the idea of being observed before I know what I'm doing, but I guess I'll have to get over it :) ‍‍ **

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 * 10/6: I have written all my lesson plans and have discussed them with my teacher. They will all be centered around the book, "Little Cloud", by Eric Carle. I'm going to read them the story for, obviously, the reading a story requirement. For integrated arts, I have foam paint, colored and white cotton balls, and cloud cutouts that we will make our own clouds. ‍I am going to take the children on a cloud walk, where we will find different clouds and talk about the shapes we see in the clouds. ‍I will teach them a math lesson using clouds; a very simple one involving basic addition and subtraction. I am very excited to start my lessons, but they will not begin until Wednesday because the students don't have school on Monday. On Monday, I am building a shape-walk book and a color-walk book, two activities we did with the children. We gave each of them a color then walked around campus finding that color and took pictures documenting their findings. The same was done with the shapes.‍ I am just going in on Monday to help with classroom organization and, of course, to help build the books. This is the non-glamouros aspect of being a teacher and I feel that it is good to experience that. **

**10/19: We actually have not started my lesson plans because they have had a LOT of stuff going on! Learning about trees and shapes and animals and pretty much everything else :) but I am for sure doing my first lesson on Monday. For the art portion, I am buying cardboard, puffy paint, colored cotton balls, and regular white cotton balls. I will provide the children with cloud cutouts, and they will decorate them to make their very own little clouds. I know i addressed this before, but I am so excited to start, but still a little nervous. I'm actually kind of glad that we've had to put it off for so long, but I know I will be ok. On Monday, I got there early and I had time to hear their devotional in the morning.‍ It is a great way for kids to start the day, and if I am fortunate enough to work in a religious private school, which I would LOVE to do, I will start my mornings off with a nice little devotional. ‍ Then, the children had their first gym class, which was so cute to watch. I got there a little later than everyone else because i remained behind in the classroom and hung up the children's collections of leaves and pinecones from their fall nature walk lesson. I am having a blast at the preschool and is further solidifying the fact that I am in the right field, which also makes me very excited :)**

**10/26: I read a story and did an integrated arts lesson on Monday, 10/24. It went very well. We read the story as a group (of course) and the children got very into the book; before i could say the name of the picture on the page, they were all shouting it out and anxiously awaiting the next picture on the next page. Then, I took three students at a time over to the tables to do my cloud art project. They had a great time painting the clouds. The paint bottles were a good tool to develop fine motor skills and to build the muscles in their little hands. On Monday, I am going to conduct a literacy interview with my classroom teacher and begin my early math lesson. I have purchased colored mini marshmallows and a bag of m&ms. Their math lesson will involved sorting by color and type of treat. Of course, at the end it will involved eating the treats :) I am having an awesome time with these kids, they really like me and trust me. They always want me to read to them. I had one little girl, though she is three, try to read me a book that she had already memorized. She performed the memorized reading perfectly. It was fun to watch. **

12/14: Well I am finally done with everything, and it feels great These past couple months doing my practicum have really allowed me to believe that I can really be a teacher: I've never experienced that feeling before. In the classroom, we just did much of the same to finish up my time there. We built play-doh monsters during play-doh time. I was not allowed to take pictures during the practicum because of confidentiality, but I did manage to get one picture of a play-doh monster. Wow that picture is huge and I can't shrink it. But I had a ton of fun with the kids, and I'm really glad that I got to participate in this practicum site!