Last week was so insanely off-schedule and hectic with a cancellation and two delays and schedule changes that I completely neglected this blog. :( So, I'll try to catch up here...in brief.
I have been becoming more and more comfortable in my classroom and in my building and I am loving it more every day! Last week I picked up teaching sight words and more small reading groups. My cooperating teacher has given me such awesome advice after observing my lessons, and I think our teaching styles really mesh well with one another. We had a great discussion last week after one of my lessons about the use of the basal reader. The Iowa City schools now require that teachers teach "by the book," but like me, my CT is wary of using every part of the basal. She and I share the same philosophy that you can teach the objectives in the book, but that modifying the steps to fit the needs of the class is a realistic solution to that. I was kind of doing that on my own before we really talked about it, and she commended me for doing so. I think that the ability to conference with one another after lessons/while the kids are at specials, and before and after school, is helping me tremendously.
Today I took over letter work as part of literacy instruction and another small reading group. I was excited to incorporate music into my introduction of the letter Z (I found a piggyback song to the tune of "Where is Thumbkin" and the kids loved it!), just like I will be incorporating music into my ORIGINAL SOCIAL STUDIES UNIT! tomorrow. :) (I'm very excited for the unit.) Also, taking over more small reading groups was really rough today because it was the first "regular" day since last Tuesday and the students haven't had much small group instructional time. But, again, I was able to conference with my CT after the lesson and she gave me feedback about some ways to manage more effectively.
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