Week 1: Meeting the Students

 Sara Kent 

Thursday January 28th, 2021

Today was my first day in my MT's class with her 1st graders. When we first logged on, my MT has each of her students say good morning so that she can ask them how they are and they can do the same with her and their classmates. I think it is a good way to start the morning off on a positive note. The kids seemed excited to meet me and I was excited to meet them. One girl even asked how my pets were and referred to them by name which I thought was impressive that her parents read her my intro letter. With that, I actually ended up showing the kids my rabbit, Marshall, over the screen and they showed me their pets. It was a nice and fun way to get acclumated with each other. 

Shortly after, my MT had the kids go into break out rooms for peer reading. She put me in a break out room with three students. I supervised as they read and helped them with their activity sheets afterwards. I was a little nervous to be in a break out room with them so soon but once I got more into it, I felt more confident that I could help them when they needed it. At the end of the day, I went with the students to their specials: P.E and Spanish. I thought it was neat to observe their specials because those tend to be the students favorite classes as they are a bit more fun. 

I learned a lot on this first day such as some new classroom management techniques. My MT has some cool little things she does that I will implement into my teaching. When the kids answer tough questions she has them "kiss their brains" and after the kids present their work she has the other classmates and herself do something called "spirit fingers" which is just another alternative to clapping that I thought was a cute idea. For simple questions she has the kids simply use thumbs up or thumbs down instead of having everyone talk at once. Overall, I felt like it was a very productive first day and it definitely eased my anxiety a bit.