Intern Experience Week #15

This past week at my PDS has been very eventful. We experiences 2 snow days on Monday and Tuesday and then a 2 hour delay on Wednesday. This was my first time being able to see how snow days can effect planning and the behaviors of students. Needless to say it was a crazy week! When the week started on Wednesday and the students and teachers came back it was busy. The schedule was changed because of the delay and teachers also lost their planning. It was difficult to change lessons around in a short amount of time because I could not do what I originally planned since we missed the two previous days. Also the students were very talkative and full of energy seeing that they had a four day weekend so I had to make sure that I planned a very structured day to keep behavior problems down. I decided to have a review day of the material from the week before since we had just started a difficult unit on matter and energy. I knew the students probably forgot a lot of important information from the week before that they would need for this weeks activity. We were also moving into density so it was important that they had a concrete background on the idea of atoms, mass, and volume. We worked on important concepts from the chapter and then discussed important ideas and then answered any misconceptions that students had. Overall, I felt that the day went as well as it could. I had a lot of trouble with behavior, talking mostly, but I felt like it couldn't really be avoided because of the snow days.
This weeks blog is a lot shorter then usual and that's because of the lack of time in my PDS. I am getting excited to be done teaching soon, the 5 am wake ups are not getting any easier. But I really am going to miss my students. I feel like I have a real relationship with my students now and I believe I also have finally found my teaching style, for this particular subject and grade level. I also have learned a lot about myself as an educator and the type of teacher I want to be. I have really enjoyed my time in the 5th grade. I think that through all of my experiences in elementary school and middle, that I connect more with old aged students. I loved my time in 5th grade and middle school. I also really enjoy being in the special education classroom and I can't want to be able to spend more time in there.