Week 1 - Welcome to the Class!

 Stefanie Flory 

Thursday January 28th, 2021 

    Today was my first day in the classroom with my MT and her wonderful second grade class! Prior to meeting with the children today, I had met via google meets with my MT to discuss all the details of how Thursdays will go during my time with her students. During our meeting, I expressed to her all the questions and concerns I had going into the week. She was SO reassuring and so happy to help answer all my questions and concerns with open ears. This helped me a lot going into today for the first time. The children were so excited to meet me and although I was nervous before the meeting, once I started and introduced myself, it was almost as if I knew the students already. I introduced myself to them and we did a quick little Q&A so that the students could ask me anything they wanted. This came to my surprise because I have never worked with students above the grade level of kindergarten, and the children just started water falling all these questions and no one was shy even the slightest bit! This helped calm my nerves down SO much and it was so great to get to communicate and talk with them. I loved every minute of it. 

    As the first day, I spend majority of the day observing the students in the classroom. I took notes as I watched my MT teach the students. I looked at her classroom management such as how to get the children engaged, transitions from one activity to another, and overall how her teaching is reflected virtually. Some key ideas I took away from this first day was I was able to grasp some of the knowledge that the students know already. My MT had the students work on a coin counting activity, and to my surprise, most of the students were fairly familiar with the names of the coins as well as the value, so as they completed the activity I was able to see their knowledge of coins. This helps me with planning when it comes time for me to teach the lessons because I know their level of knowledge in this content area. I also documented some notes down about how she manages her time well with the activities. She uses YouTube timers for when the students are given time to complete something such as answering the QOTD which today was "What makes you feel happy?". This will help me when it comes to teaching my lesson because the students can visually see the timer. Lastly, I was able to see some of the materials that the students have in their homes. My MT uses plastic pockets as a way of incorporating the use of dry erase boards, this will help me with planning and implementing the lesson in an interactive way so I can assess the children during an activity. 

    Overall, today was a great first day and I can not wait to get started and become more active with teaching in the classroom!