Holy Cuteness, Batman!!

So I’ve been super busy for the past week and a half because we started practicum last Tuesday! I absolutely love it this semester! Last semester wasn’t a great experience for me because I had to share the classroom with another student so I didn’t get as many opportunities to teach and my mentor teacher was very unhelpful when it came to helping us know what to teach and giving us opportunities. My mentor teacher this semester is awesome! She keeps just asking me if I want to teach certain lessons so I’ve had a ton of experience teaching already! It’s so great. This past week I had a reading group and we worked on expression and punctuation while reading and performing a play. It was a blast. I did a few shared reading lessons and I’m reading my class Charlie and the Chocolate Factory! They love it! I think I’m going to have them invent their own candy and design it out and everything for an art lesson next week. I’m in a Year 3/4 classroom so my students range from age 6 to 8 years old. It’s like teaching 2nd and 3rd grade in one classroom which can be challenging at times. There are also a few of the older boys that like to act out. I think they get rowdy though because all they do in class here are worksheets and they’re expected to sit in their desks and work for good chunks of time. I would get rowdy, too. The way classrooms run here is very different from the US and it’s helping me see what I’m going to make sure I don’t do in my classroom. It also gives me an opportunity to do a lot of hands on activities with the kids and my teacher is all for it which is awesome. Next week I’m introducing argumentative writing, teaching a math group and a reading group, and reading to them every day. Woohoo! Management is a lot different here as well. They don’t really tell the students what their expectations are but then they punish them for not acting the way they want them to. It’s very contradictory and not very consistent so that doesn’t help with those naughty boys in my class. I also don’t think the teachers take a ton of time getting to know their students so I’ve had a lot of fun working one on one with some of the kids. They respond to me really well. There’s this boy in my class and his name is Pierre. He is the cutest little boy I’ve ever seen. He looks like Joseph Gordon-Leavitt and he’s super quiet and really smart. I just love him. Malachi is one of the trouble boys in my class but I think he acts out because he gets bored. He’s super smart and he’s one of those kids that has a really hard time sitting still. So I’m working with my teacher to find out a way we can give him some other activities to work on. It’s a totally new concept for her but Malachi will benefit from it so I’m super excited to see what works! The kids keep asking me all these crazy questions about America. My favorite is “Do you brush your teeth before or after you eat breakfast in America?” Hahaha, they also ask me about cafeterias and lunch at elementary schools because they don’t have them here. Everyone brings a lunch or they can go order lunch from the local convenience store. They’re always so surprised when I tell them that we had cafeterias just like in High School Musical. Hahaha, they’re so cute and I love teaching. When they have a question they put their finger in the air and say, “Miss, Miss!” instead of yelling, “Teacher!” It’s the cutest thing ever! I had a moment yesterday when I thought to myself, “I can totally do this for the rest of my life.” I love getting to know my students and understanding how their little brains work! 

Also, next week I'm going to see Fun. and Passenger in concert and I'm so excited!! I can't see Ed Sheeran though because the concert is sold out already :( In case you don't know who Ed or Passenger are, here is a video they recorded together yesterday :)