Hey friends! This week seemed to fly by. I am at home now with my mom and brother awaiting the arrival of my niece, who has decided that the due date assigned to her didn't suit her taste... I am so excited an anxious for her to get here! My sister is doing well, but she is antsy for the baby as well. I spent this entire week with my phone in my pocket, waiting for it to go off saying that Erin was in labor, but no baby yet. Hopefully I will be able to come right away whenever she does have the baby and it won't be during the school day!
This week was the first week where I was sort of on my own two feet. I did a lot of solo teaching and made a few teaching videos. Monday we were without technology as the tech guy worked on all of the computers. This would have been a challenge if Alissa didn't have an iPad! It did pose some difficulties seeing as we couldn't use the smartboard... Which, by the way, I wish I would have had a lot more training in! Those things are so cool, but if one thing goes wrong, I am completely amiss as to how to fix it. I began teaching the 4th graders a 2 part song on recorder on Monday, where I opened them up to the idea of sight-reading. It went pretty well seeing as they only had to sight read two notes for different note values. I was proud!
Tuesday was my first day flying solo and teaching my own lessons. Alissa had an appointment, so the classroom teachers just sat in the room while I taught Alissa's classes. I taught two sections of Kindergarten where I got them working on identifying high, medium, and low pitches. By the end of the class, students were able to draw simple melodic contour sketches for songs. I was worried the lesson would be too hard for them, but I was impressed by their answers and creativity. I still really struggle to gauge what is appropriate for Kindergarteners... I also taught two 2nd grade classes where we discussed form through the piece "The Aquarium" by Camille Saint-Saëns. It went really well and the kids seemed to pick up the concept quickly. I used colored fish to represent the different sections of the piece, and they enjoyed pretending to swim around the classroom.
Wednesday was out of the ordinary, as we didn't have Mass but had a rehearsal for the musical instead. The 5th graders had a rude awakening as we pushed them out on stage to show us what they know. The show is in 3 weeks, and many of them still struggle with the words to the songs. It was a good little wakeup call that was repeated with the 8th grade later that day. We have lots of work to do!!
Thursday I got observed for the first time at this new placement. I taught the 4th graders more of the song and we did some more sight-reading exercises. It went really well, and I am growing less and less nervous every time I get observed. I feel like my supervisor is so supportive that it puts my nerves at ease. I also found out that I'm all done with student teaching seminar for the semester! WAHOO!! It is sort of starting to feel like the end of student teaching, even though I still have 6 weeks left...
Friday. was. crazy. We had VIP day at school where students bring their family, friends, or others to school with them for a day. We all went to Mass together, then we provided refreshments and entertainment by some of our talented students, and then the VIPs followed their student around for a few classes before heading to lunch. After lunch, the day resumed as normal. Alissa had another appointment on Friday afternoon, which meant I took her 1st and 3rd grade afternoon classes, 4 classes back to back! I opened new units for each, 1st grade began with partner songs while 3rd grade began to read solfege. I was so worried that they would be super squirrely after VIP day, but they were pretty good and stayed engaged. I was so beat by the end of the day though that I got to my mom's house and crashed. It was a good day and I got some great footage of myself teaching!
I was very happy this week to get many compliments on my teaching by the teachers who were sitting in on my classes. They kept telling me that I'm a natural and that my lessons were great. One teacher said, "I even learned something new!" That really boosted my confidence, especially since I read the evaluations that I passed out to the kids at my high school placement and many of them told me I needed to work on having clearer directions... My Music Appreciation class was especially kind, telling me to "eat poop" and that "you suck." That was probably the low point of my week. But you just have to shake it off and move on! Not everyone is going to love you!
Prayer requests: My paperwork with MPS is taking a really long time, so pray that the process speeds up! Also pray that my sister has her baby with no complications and that she is healthy! Thanks for your support, and I am grateful for your prayers!
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