Mock Interviews

The mock interviews were very informative for me. I have never been a very good speaker and I have never been good at interviews. I was nervous when the principle asked me a question even though there was no pressure. This concerns me and also opens my eyes that i will have to practice the interview process before i actually get interviewed. I felt the pressure last class and really will need to work so I know my stuff cold so that my nerves do not get too out of control. It was great to hear some of the questions though, most of them if really thought about them I could answer however to put all the jargon and information in the answers i will need to work through them. It was good to hear the questions though to get some idea of what they will ask us!

second social issues day

The social issues day was a very touching day. I really enjoyed the speakers that talked about the Holocaust. I think that this type of education is very important so that a tragedy like this does not ever happen again. I was grateful that the second speaker, a Holocaust survivor talked to us about his experience. I think it takes courage to think about this event and speak about it to such a large audience. The other seminars I went to were really well done. I went to the stress lecture where the man put us into a trance which was neat but weird at the same time. I felt a little sick when he was putting us into the trans. I don't know if that is a normal reaction but it was interesting all in all. I went to the tribes seminar too, this was very interesting. I think that it would be great to take a course to become more familiar with the tribes concept to teach with. Some of the ideas I know would work very well in a classroom. I would love to get my hands on an activity book however without the course i feel i would not know how to put the true philosophy into practice. This was a great day, and i learned a lot from the speakers and the activities they planed.

outdoor -ed activity with my grade 2's

Before christmas I went back to my first blocks school to do an outdoor education activity with the students. The students and I really enjoyed this day. I read the book "That Chickadee Feeling" by Frank Glew. This is a great book and the students were very engaged. This was the first time they had heard this story and they thought that a chickadee feeling was only a feeling that you could get if a chickadee landed on you. We then went into more depth about different feelings that could be considered a chickadee feeling. The book described how the boy fed the chickadee in his hand and they were excited to be a part of feeding the little chickadees. This tied nicely into making the bird feeders. We made suet by using lard. I told the students that they could also make suet by grinding up fat from beef and pork. This activity was very messy but the students were on task and engaged. The students were able to do this activity independently except for tying the ribbon around the pinecone. I would not have thought that this would be a concern. The clean up was a little tedious however I swept when the students were out for recess.
The birdhouses were a lot of fun for the students, however I’m not sure how long they will actually last outside. They students were able to name all of the shapes and identify them in their birdhouse. The students were excited to take these home as a Christmas present for the birds.
I enjoyed this day and I think that it was a good learning experience for the students. I’m grateful to my associate teacher for letting me teach for the day even though I wasn’t on my teaching block. I asked her if I could come in and teach this lesson and she was very eager.