For my very first teaching practicum in Education 391, I was placed in a kindergarten classroom and was given the duty to teach for approximately one hour and thirty minutes a day which resulted in 20-25 lessons for the three-week practicum. I was placed with an incredibly intelligent and experienced master teacher that I am very grateful for. I appreciate her willingness to have me in her classroom and teaching me brand-new knowledge, techniques, and methods of the teaching profession. I will miss the kindergarten students I had the opportunity to teach, and will never forget this experience!
The kindergarten students I taught along with my coaching teacher gifted me this ‘thank you’ card with class signatures, and thank you statements on my very last day of practicum. It almost made me cry! Coming home after my very last day, my parents also had this cake and flowers waiting for me which also almost made me cry! Feeling very thankful for all the amazing support in my life while I complete this educational journey.
LESSONS AND ACTIVITIES:
I taught a kindness lesson to help support social and emotional learning while also focusing on the students and their writing skills. Here, I wrote individual ‘you are…’ statements for students to understand that these help others feel loved. Students participated in many activities while practicing their own writing by copying my ‘you are…’ statements onto heart shaped notes and other templates to give to their loved ones. They loved these activities!For another lesson in my unit on kindness with the kindergarten students, I created my own chart on the difference between ‘bucket fillers’ and ‘bucket dippers’ so that they can always refer back to it for reference regarding the comparison between kind and unkind behavior.I also taught a unit on community helpers and careers while incorporating a fun lesson/activity on ‘what do you want to be when you grow up?’ Students had the opportunity to draw themselves in their future career of their choice and share it with the class afterwards. I helped students with the writing and spelling. This student wants to be a teacher when they grow up!This student wants to be a police officer when they grow up!Another kindness lesson/activity where students were asked to be a ‘rainbow in someone else’s cloud’ – I had the students cut out cloud templates, write ‘you are…’ statements on rainbow strips and glue them onto their clouds while giving them to loved ones at home. First, my coaching teacher hung them up on the wall outside the kindergarten classroom and took a photograph of them all on her ‘Dojo’ app to show the parents what their student teacher taught them and had them do for an activity. Kindergarten students’ kindness ‘rainbow in someone else’s cloud’ English – Language Arts/Art work
During my practicum, I was able to witness 100s day. This was the 100th day of school for the kindergarteners and they liked to call it ‘100 days smarter’. It was a huge day full of celebration and fun activities.
I bought popsicle sticks to create a sight word game for the kindergarten students that was a hit! The students loved sitting in a big circle, pulling a stick with their eyes closed from the container and picking a popsicle stick each time – if a student picked a sight word, they were asked to say the word to the group, and if the student picked a book, they would have to pick another popsicle stick with a sight word on it to create a sentence. If the student picked a surprised face, all students would yell ‘busted!’ and all the sticks would be placed back into the container to start the game over. The kindergarten students loved this game which made me really happy. Calendar time is a daily activity/lesson for the kindergarten students, and they love it! I taught this daily where we sang the days of the week, talked about seasons and what appropriate clothing we should wear outside each day for the weather, and counted by 1s, 5s, 10s, and more. They particularly loved to count to 100 with me! More counting activities for calendar time. More counting activities for calendar time – the kindergarten students loved counting sticks and placing them in buckets while keeping track of how many days they were in school – here, the students were at 91 days in school and the special helper of the day would record the number 91 and place sticks in the one and tens buckets to make 91.
