I got a temporary position out at a very small community where I taught Grade 3/4, and to say that I LOVED it there is a bit of an understatement. At first, I felt worried that I was jumping off of the deep end, being a new teacher and all, but the staff and my colleagues were beyond helpful, supportive, and friendly. I couldn't have done it without their help and encouragement. I had drive an hour out to the school and hour back everyday, but it felt like it was absolutely worth it to work in such a great school with fantastic staff and students.
I had a class of students that were mostly ESL, low-German Mennonites, so some of the challenges were developing language skills and trying to keep them on track when they would leave for Mexico for long periods of time. The teacher that had gone on leave had a great Daily 5 routine set up for the students where they would rotate to different groups every 20 minutes. There were iPads available for listening to reading and they were using RazKids, a program that I was new to. It was great to check the progress and reading skills of the students, but I quickly found that not all the students liked them. Some of the students felt that the books on there did not cater to their interests and they were bored of the books. Other students were a little more focused on earning stars to build their robot avatar (because you earn points/stars when you read books and take quizzes) and they would find loopholes to get the stars without having to do as much work. I also found that I needed to offer a lot of encouragement when it came to the Writing group; we explored different ways that we could practice our writing skills, including writing letters to each other and drawing/writing their own comics/stories. When I left, the students were just starting on learning and practising their cursive.
Teaching Math was also a new experience, and always a skill I'm working on. The class would be split for Math; I taught the Grade 3s while the Grade 4s went to another teacher. We used the JumpMath program which I love; it's all very well laid out for the teacher and students, leading through the concepts step by step. I didn't always enjoy everything about the program, but I made adjustments here and there depended on how the students were grasping the concepts. I also found and adapted some games for that class. Maybe I'll put the instructions and downloadable sheets into another blog post?
I also got to stick around and enjoy the festivities of Christmas and the Christmas concerts; there is a German one and another one where all the students participate in. My Gr 3/4s did a Nativity play which I SO IMMENSELY PROUD OF THEM FOR! They were so amazing and even though we had moments where I felt like I was rounding up kittens more than I was teaching, they did such a great job when the night came.
I was sad to leave my kids at the end of January, and on my last day, they surprised me with a party and each wrote me letters. I was fine until they all read their letters to me and then I may have cried a little. I have come to know each one of them and their unique quirks and personalities that it is really hard to let go. Nonetheless, I am always growing, and I need to move on, but I am so glad for this opportunity and all the wonderful things that I learned from it.