It has been over a month since my last post and it seemed time to sit down and write a few words.

This semester has continued to increase in intensity. I feel as if my sanity is being tested making it through this 21 hour load. I am making it though and with flying colors no less. I am genuinely 100% proud of myself. I have worked my tail off this semester and it's almost over! Thank goodness.

I started practicum in a fourth grade class a couple weeks ago. I am at an elementary school with grades 3-5 about forty five minutes south of school. I manage to fit it into my schedule to go every single day anywhere from 2 to 6 hours.

My last practicum experience was interesting...I'll leave it at that. This practicum experience has been absolutely fabulous though! My teacher is absolutely amazing. She has taught me so much in the short time that I've been in her classroom and we collaborate really well together. The students are equally as amazing. They are all great kids who each have something special to offer the classroom. I haven't had any major problems with classroom management and no major disciplinary issues.

I've been putting myself out there trying to learn and teach whatever my cooperating teacher tosses my way. My first lesson was in math (eek!). I was pretty nervous just because I felt like the math concept I was teaching could potentially be a difficult idea for the students to grasp. The lesson was on frequency and cumulative frequency. I passed out a bag of M & M's and a worksheet with a table consisting of a column with the colors of the M & M's, a column to put tallies for frequency, and a column to calculate cumulative frequency to each student. I also had the worksheet pulled up on the SmartBoard. As a class, we counted the different colors of our M & M's and put them in the appropriate row calculating cumulative frequency all along the way. I graded the papers and the kids really got it. It was the first swell of pride for my student's work.

I had an observed lesson on Monday. I created a really cute Smartboard lesson about linking verbs with a koala theme to it. I made the students remember the linking verbs by clapping and saying them to a beat. Every couple sentence examples we did I would make them repeat it twice. Hopefully it is something they won't forget! Haha.

I gave another lesson today about irregular verbs in the past tense. I used a SmartBoard lesson that my cooperating teacher made with a Chicago theme that was completely adorable. The kids normally get M & M's or animal crackers when they answer questions, but when they asked me what I was going to give them, I told them.... High fives of course! They all thought it was completely dorky, but they got a good laugh out of it. I would call them up to the SmartBoard by pulling their name out of a bowl. Before I would let them go back to their seat, I would give them a high five and tell them awesome job. To be honest, I think it completely embarrassed some of the kids. I told them that I needed smiles from everyone when they came to the front of the room. This made them giggle even more. I can still hear them groaning, "Miss Rooooooooooss."

Next week is my last week with this group of kiddos. I'm enjoying myself so much that I don't want it to end.
The upside? Thanksgiving break the week after!

Has anyone ever head of Ron Clark's Essential 55?
This man Ron Clark started a school in Atlanta that gives scholarships for less advantaged kids. It is unreal how cool this school is. Take a look at this videos and search Ron Clark Academy on youtube if you want more.