First day of real teaching

Yesterday was my first full morning in my Elementary School class. I arrived at 7:30, and found out that I would be teaching a small group for Literacy block. I spent the 30 minutes with the teacher figuring out exactly what I would be doing with the kids, and looking over the materials. The schedule that the class has while I'm there is Short morning activity as they enter the class, Literacy block, meeting, then Math. It works out well because I'm supposed to do projects in both Literacy and Math for my education classes so I will have scheduled class time (I hope) to get my work done. 

Anywho, the kids start entering the classroom and take off their winter clothes, put their things in their cubbies and slowly get started with the morning activity. The morning activity was to organize some sea creatures into 2 groups, individually, they got to pick what 2 groups they were organized into. While I knew what the activity was, I wasn't sure how much I was supposed to correct the kids, or influence them in deciding if a sea creature really belonged in that group. Teaching in another teacher's classroom is difficult; what you decide is the right way to teach, might not be the same. After this activity, we started in with Literacy block. I had the children start of reading individually a short story that they had just read the previous day. I learned a lot about them as individuals, just by watching them read. Some skipped pages and then insisted that they had read each one, some would copy what others were reading out-loud as the 'read' their own page, even though the other child was on a different page, and some were really confident and determined to finish reading the story. 

A lot of the time was spent trying to show the kids that they couldn't walk all over me, I was in charge, and trying to make sure I stayed positive and light. I think the teacher thinks that I was capable enough because all ready she asked me to plan out the next lesson for my Literacy group! It's exciting, and a little nerve-wracking. I'm the only one in my student-teaching class that has started making lesson plans, and most of them say that my teacher must be really tough, but I think that she thinks that the best way to learn how to teach is by teaching. 

When I taught at the Middle School the kids called me Ms Stinson. I felt so old! I'm so happy that the teacher has the kids in my El. School call me Miss Amaryah. The kids learned how to say it faster than the teacher did I think. After practicing my name a few times when I first came in, the teacher decided to write my name phonetically on the board (up in a corner) so she would know how to say it.