I felt more comfortable on my second day in the classroom than last week. I know the students more after working with them on my first day and with my mentor teacher. They overall are very friendly and try to interact with me as much as possible as me with them. I tried to be more interactive and helpful; this week. As I said earlier, I felt more comfortable this week, so it made interacting with the students and them with me. A few students raised their hands, and then the MT walked over and asked her if I could help them – this made me smile. They are warming up to me and looking at me in this light – being a teacher, a help.
I jumped in when my MT was teaching today, too. I didn’t even realize I did it at the moment; I have co-taught before, so it felt normal. It wasn’t until later that she pulled me aside and told me how happy she was that I freely jumped in like that. During this lesson, they discussed using expressive language in their writing. I asked if certain words were expressive and if I could use a different word. For example, I wrote a sentence, ‘I am happy to see my dog.’ I asked if this was a good sentence. A few students said it was good, and the rest said no. I asked a few students who answered why they answered that way. A few explained that the word good was not expressive enough – they could use another adjective instead. I agreed and asked if we could use a word with a little more pizzazz what it would be. Up went all the hands – excited, overjoyed, giddy, etc were a few of the words. I was honestly surprised by the words they threw at me. I was surprised to find out the number of excellent ones!
Later in the afternoon, there was a sub as the MT had a meeting so she let me work with the sub. I have my sub license, so I felt more comfortable working with the sub. The rest of the afternoon was easy – it consisted of a lot of work time for the students. At the very end of the day, I did a read-aloud. I used a lot of the techniques that I have learned from experience and from field 2. I asked a lot of questions about the cover, the title, as well as throughout the book. On every other page, I asked a question. After I asked one last culminating question – the sub was impressed. I’m not sure she knows I have subbed before, though.
This is the book I read during the read-aloud.
I’m excited to see what next week holds!