Welcome Back to School!
Hi everyone!
I trust you all have had a wonderful summer! I know it felt short (and they keep feeling shorter and shorter) but I do hope you enjoyed your time off and received some relaxation time. This is a BIG year for me. I will be student teaching in the fall, but I'm already going to be in my classroom every Monday and Wednesday this semester. I cannot describe how nervous, but excited I am. Yesterday was Kindergarten orientation, and the whole time I had to fight back tears. This is because I've never felt more at home and peaceful than when I step into a classroom. I whole-heartedly believe I'm choosing the right career path. Now, to graduate and get a job!
This week was filled with orientation videos and introductions. In science methods, I greatly enjoyed creating my sketchnote and talking about why I choose to teach. The sketchnote caused me to ponder on what exactly is science education and honestly, I had to think for an embarrassing amount of time. I kept resorting back to what the kindergarten standards of science are, but that's not the point. Why do we teach science? This is a hard question to answer, because I've always struggled in science so I struggled in this project as well. My "Start with Why" project helped answer this question and was the assignment I felt most proud of, because this is something I'm passionate about. I want to instill a love of learning in my students and teaching science properly will help with that. This profession is meaningful and if given the amount of effort it deserves, it's rewarding as well.
Next week, I want to get ahead on assignments as much as possible! The beginning of the semester isn't too crazy, so now is the time to be extra proactive. I plan to get started on my PDP, work on ideas for my unit and research plenty of resources to utilize this semester. In class today, I partnered with Michaela and Mallory to complete our "boat experiment." This was fun and thought provoking since we were trying to create a boat that has enough surface area to hold a lot of "pennies." During next week's classes, I plan to get started on our terrarium/aquarium assignment and start working on the collaborative group project involving our text.
Outside of the app I used for my sketchnote, I found other apps that would be great to use as well for this assignment, like flipink and brushes. Sketchnotes are unique because they allow people to create visual aids of their thoughts in a fun and creative way! For students who struggle with traditional style learning and teaching, providing them with this opportunity to make notes in a unique way will help them retain information and follow along with NCPTS IV.d "Teachers integrate and utilize technology in their instruction."
This week I learned a lot about the eclipse and how it happens way more often than I thought. It's just extremely rare to see on in your particular part of the world, but there are people who "chase" eclipses and can see them all around the world every couple of years! I also learned about surface area and buoyancy and how the larger the surface area, the more weight an object can hold.
To conclude, here are some screenshots of my tweets this week:
This is a picture of what we did in class today! I learned about surface area and buoyancy and how the larger the surface area, the more weight an object can hold. Mallory, Michaela, and I named our boats "Rachel" "Monica" and "Phoebe." Phoebe held over 240 blocks before she sank!
I trust you all have had a wonderful summer! I know it felt short (and they keep feeling shorter and shorter) but I do hope you enjoyed your time off and received some relaxation time. This is a BIG year for me. I will be student teaching in the fall, but I'm already going to be in my classroom every Monday and Wednesday this semester. I cannot describe how nervous, but excited I am. Yesterday was Kindergarten orientation, and the whole time I had to fight back tears. This is because I've never felt more at home and peaceful than when I step into a classroom. I whole-heartedly believe I'm choosing the right career path. Now, to graduate and get a job!
This week was filled with orientation videos and introductions. In science methods, I greatly enjoyed creating my sketchnote and talking about why I choose to teach. The sketchnote caused me to ponder on what exactly is science education and honestly, I had to think for an embarrassing amount of time. I kept resorting back to what the kindergarten standards of science are, but that's not the point. Why do we teach science? This is a hard question to answer, because I've always struggled in science so I struggled in this project as well. My "Start with Why" project helped answer this question and was the assignment I felt most proud of, because this is something I'm passionate about. I want to instill a love of learning in my students and teaching science properly will help with that. This profession is meaningful and if given the amount of effort it deserves, it's rewarding as well.
Next week, I want to get ahead on assignments as much as possible! The beginning of the semester isn't too crazy, so now is the time to be extra proactive. I plan to get started on my PDP, work on ideas for my unit and research plenty of resources to utilize this semester. In class today, I partnered with Michaela and Mallory to complete our "boat experiment." This was fun and thought provoking since we were trying to create a boat that has enough surface area to hold a lot of "pennies." During next week's classes, I plan to get started on our terrarium/aquarium assignment and start working on the collaborative group project involving our text.
Outside of the app I used for my sketchnote, I found other apps that would be great to use as well for this assignment, like flipink and brushes. Sketchnotes are unique because they allow people to create visual aids of their thoughts in a fun and creative way! For students who struggle with traditional style learning and teaching, providing them with this opportunity to make notes in a unique way will help them retain information and follow along with NCPTS IV.d "Teachers integrate and utilize technology in their instruction."
This week I learned a lot about the eclipse and how it happens way more often than I thought. It's just extremely rare to see on in your particular part of the world, but there are people who "chase" eclipses and can see them all around the world every couple of years! I also learned about surface area and buoyancy and how the larger the surface area, the more weight an object can hold.
To conclude, here are some screenshots of my tweets this week:
I enjoyed looking at this sketchnote because it gives me more creative ideas to improve mine. I need to find some sort of utensil that will help me draw fine, organized lines on my iPad. Using my finger causes it to look messy and my OCD mindset doesn't like that.
Finally, this last tweet was about ways to improve your classroom environment. The second point is playing music as your students enter the classroom. I believe many people forget or are unaware of how important arts education is in students' lives. Many children understand and flourish when music, theatre or visual arts are integrated into their education. The other 9 points were equally important and I hope you all get the chance to read them.
Have a great weekend guys!
Gabrielle
I'm excited for you! Your heart is with these students you don't even know, you will be a great teacher, even if it's just for the simple fact that you care. Keep being proactive on work, I believe in you! It never occurred to me that eclipses are not rare, mostly because it does not effect my every day life. Phoebe was a successful boat! I looked over when your group was placing the blocks in the boat and was amazed by the overflow.
ReplyDeleteGabby, it really stuck out to me that you mentioned how long it took you to come up with what exactly science eduction is, because I felt the exact same way! I believe that this may have a lot to do with the fact that science was not a huge part of really any of my elementary classes when I was a student. I love that you have found what you are passionate about and you are accomplishing what you must to get there! I have faith that you will be able to be an intentional science teacher after looking at your why and seeing how passionate you are. It was so nice to take a break from the more logical side of teaching to do the "Why" assignment. Based on this blog it sounds like you are one of the "happy medium" teachers who rely on passion and abilities. One is no good without the other! I was also happy to see your tweet about the boat making brought up again in this blog! That was such a great time to refocus and really begin thinking in a scientific way. I think it's safe to say we all thoroughly enjoyed that experiment and the preceding discussion!
ReplyDeleteGabby, I am so excited for you as yo begin this journey as a kindergarten teacher! When you said you teared up being in the classroom, this made my heart melt and I totally relate. When I stepped into my classroom this week, I had this feeling of peace come over me because I was in my happy place and felt so comfortable at my school in the classroom. I feel the same way about wanting to be productive as much as possible next week before everything gets crazy! I love your last tweet about relating to students' passions and I actually had the thought about playing music in my class in the mornings and afternoons for the students. I want to use a Go Noodle video in the morning too! I am excited to see what the year holds for you!
ReplyDeleteGabby, that is so exciting that you will be student teaching in the fall! I can't imagine the emotions that are running through your head right now! I also struggle with science so when completing the tasks in our opening week some were a little difficult. I am excited to learn more this semester and believe we will definitely be better prepared for science once we are finished with this class. That is a great idea to get ahead on work while the semester isn't so crazy, I need to do that as well! I'm excited for this semester and what we will learn!
ReplyDeleteGabby,
ReplyDeleteWow. Just wow. I am so glad to see that you feel at home (and at peace) when you are in the classroom. This is great!!!!! This semester will fly by and you will be able to live out your dream of becoming a teacher! Thanks for a great beginning to the semester. Keep on embracing learning so you will be able to more effectively apply the concepts you are learning.