Getting Ready to Grow Up

Yesterday was really an eye awakening experience for me. For starters, I presented my first math lesson to a class of twelve students I would say pretty successfully and then I went to tour my SYOSP school for next year. Teaching the lesson was really difficult because I haven't been able to observe one of their math classes yet this year so we were not sure how much they knew and what they were able to learn from our lesson. According to our observations, we were told that our lesson was completed successfully but there were some changes to be made for the future. Hearing this really made me ecstatic because we were not very sure how it had gone with the students. I think one reason we felt this way is because we really did not have an assessment method of what the students had learned during our time teaching them and I believe that if we would have assessed their knowledge we would have been more confident about our teaching strategies in the end. I was scared standing in front of the students trying to explain what fractions meant and giving them instructions for the lesson. I feel like most of the students understand the point we were making for our lesson, but there were some slower learning students who needed some more guidance during the lesson. This made me really think how hard it is to be a teacher, needing to be aware of all of the student's understanding at all times to make sure they are all on the same page as you are. I am excited for my future lessons, and I believe that yesterday's lesson really helped me get my first time jitters out, while I'm sure there's plenty more to come! Yesterday was also the first time that I went to go visit my future SYOSP school, Alpha Hart Lewis Elementary School. The school is beautiful and planned out so well and being there really made me excited to start my student teaching for the fall. I learned a lot about the school and what it will mean to me while I'm there for an entire year. I am anxious and excited for my future at Alpha Hart Elementary School!

My First Teaching Experience

Tomorrow is the first time that I will be teaching a math lesson to a classroom of students. This makes me very nervous because I'm not sure that I am ready to start teaching children things that they will need to know for the rest of their lives. Thankfully I am co-teaching with a peer in my class to help me get my thoughts through to the students if I am not able to explain something right to allow them to understand. I am scared because I am afraid that the students are not going to understand the lesson that I am teaching them. It is hard to start teaching because I am not exactly sure how much they know in terms of fractions in math and if they are not very knowledgeable of the topic, I am afraid that I am not going to have the right information to give to them to learn. I feel that it is going to be better when I am more comfortable with my students and their knowledge on the topic, but it hard when I haven't even been able to observe one of their math classes thus far in the semester. I think that once I am in front of the students tomorrow, I will feel more comfortable when the students grasp the concept easily and have fun and learn from the lesson that we present. From my first experiences in the classroom, I know I will learn from them and they will help me become a better teacher throughout the years. I know that I could make a mistake, but everyone makes mistakes and I think that people learn best from their mistakes.

Blog Revision

After working with my own blog and seeing the blogs of others I realized that I really needed to make my blog more neat, organized, and easier to read. I changed the font so that it was not so obnoxious, put a black background so the white writing was easier to see, and changed some of the colors. I think that these changes really made a difference in the presentation of the blog and I am a lot happier with my blog because I think that it looks more professional.

Commenting on Blogs

I think that it is a really neat feature that we are allowed to comment on other people's blogs because it allows us to communicate our thoughts with the person that wrote the blog. When we are able to do this, we socialize and show our support or admiration of that person's thoughts and ideas from their writing. I also think that it makes the blogger feel good about their writing because people usually point out the positive qualities of the piece of writing.

Logic Box

My Love

I have a love for glistening objects,
For ice cream and school projects.
I get scared when I see three-legged insects,
But I get excited when I see full bottles of Windex.
I get hungry when I see string cheese,
But crave it no more when I feel a breeze.
I cringe at the thought of something rusty
That it became that way because it got old and dusty.
I tremble when I remember eating those green leaves
But now those things have become one of my pet peeves.
I adore the smell of burning tires
And of chipped wood that belongs in fires.
But all I really love is a few hundred diamonds.

Where I'm From

I am from a place where nightly dinners make the house smell like a restaurant.

I am from a place that is comfortable and relaxing as you listen to the running water of the koi pond outside in the backyard.

I am from a place that has a yard big enough to run and play in the backyard.

I am from a place where there is constant bickering between myself and my brother and where my dog barks at the strangers driving up the street.

I am from a place that looks vacant, where everything is in order with a lot of open space.

I am from a place that lives deep in my heart because the people I love live there and this place is what I call my home.