T1 W2

Week 2 has been a bit unsettled. This has been a short week so establishing and successfully getting though all routines has be hard.

Highlights and Successes
Finished the mini brain inquiry - the kids have enjoyed this and have hooked onto this. We had a discussion this week about anger and I showed them the video we had watched from our staff UB-SR training. The children liked this and seem to relate to it as it was in child-speak. It gave the children a chance to talk about emotions and what kinds of things make them feel angry. I enjoyed learning about them without it feeling like a serious lesson. I noticed that children were more forthcoming about how they feel and react to their feelings.

In general I feel like the class is working well together.

Opportunities For Improvement
I have noticed the range of abilities and understanding in my class and I can see how I need to be very explicit in my instructions and teaching. While my more capable students could cope with simple instructions, most of the class need more clarity. I think this has been a challenging aspect of establishing the routines and procedures because it is my first time. Last year, although I did have a few times where I had to reteach expectations, the class was mostly independent and self managing when I began teaching halfway through term 2. After talking to my MT, she has assured me that consistency is key. It is better to be explicit now and set those expectations as both the students and I will both benefit from it as the year goes on.

Last week I mentioned that I needed to work on getting students attention in class because a call and response idea I had didn't work well. This past week I have been teaching and setting up expectations around a new all and response idea. The class has taken to it really well and everyone joins in. It had been reassuring to see every one participate.

Another aspect I need to work on is making sure children are keeping up to date with their work. Most students are at different stages with their work and getting behind for various reasons, such as being distracted easily, language barriers, away because of sickness, lack of motivation.
I am thinking of using golden time on a Friday afternoon as an incentive to get everything finished over the week.