Reflections on Week 2/ First Week of Class

This week I taught Grade 1 and 2. I started out with "Introduction" and "Rules and Expectations" Power Point. The first graders got the longer introduction version. This took between 5 and 7 minutes.  Then I did the "in a pickle" warm-up. With the first graders, I reviewed members of the family, learned personality characteristics, and had the students interview each other.

For the second graders, we learned vocabulary, did listening activities, read a calender, learned adverbs of frequency, played a game of "Guess how often the teacher" does an activity, and then I asked the students how often they do something.

For the most part, I was able to accomplish what I set out to do. A couple of second grade classes went a little slower, so I had to cut out the last activity. I had also intended for the last activity of second grade to be an interview, but there just wasn't enough time. I probably would have needed another 10-15 minutes.

I also changed the last activity of the first grade. I originally envisioned that they would draw the person's face, and then ask questions. I thought that a drawing activity might be fun. But that took too much time. I lost the students' attention. And then there was no time for the interview.

I did have a couple of problems besides those outlined above. I included a couple of things on the class handouts that I forgot to put in the Power Point. So I to add a couple more slides.  Also the concept "every other week" seemed difficult to get across. I needed an explanation from my co-teacher.

Did the usual teacher-student interactions change as a result of the readings?  Maybe a little. I've always enjoyed having interactions with my audience. I get bored listening to the sound of my own voice. So I think I've always been more turn-taking inclined. But, as a result of the readings, I probably did ask more open-ended questions. And I did focus on waiting longer before throwing out an answer or a cue.  And this week, I don't think I spoon-fed any answers to the students.

Not as a result or the reading, this week was the first that I tossed around a ball during class.  Maybe a moving object will make the class more of a game. After about 3-4 weeks, will the students still have the same amount of attention to the moving object?  And I should probably change to a bean-bag.