I woke up Monday morning scared to death. I have never been nervous to teach, but I was that morning. I taught math this week Monday-Thursday and filmed myself doing it. That was the reason for my fear. But guess what? It went really well! The routines and procedures are coming along nicely, and my ability to teach is progressing. I am feeling more settled in my third grade classroom. I can tell that trying to build a community and relationships with my students definitely helped while teaching my math lessons.
I took a course through Stanford this summer called "How to Learn Math." It really opened my eyes to how everyone learns differently, how to present math in a fun way, and how I want to teach math in my classroom. We have math everyday from 2:15-3:15. Imagine. Third grade students having math at the very end of the day. Let me tell you, it is a hard task to keep them focused. Before I began, I promised that I was going to do my best to make math engaging, but that would mean that they had to promise to give me their best. Surprisingly, that two-way promise worked. I have made sure to engage all students during whole group by having them participate and have given them a fun activity for each topic discussed. M&M and Starburst bar graphs, using an egg carton to demonstrate a dozen, and using interactive SMART board lessons are a few of the things I implemented. In the end, I can tell you one thing... if it were my choice, we would not have math so late in the day.
I also took over morning meeting and was very pleased with the community that was built through that. One morning, we stood in a circle and had to greet the person standing next to us using either a spooky voice, whisper voice, silly voice, or manly/girly (student's choice on which gender that wanted to imitate) voice. It was a great way for the classroom to continue to use each other's names, and a beneficial way for them to learn how to greet someone properly. Community and trust definitely play a role in how responsive they are to you as the teacher.
I took a course through Stanford this summer called "How to Learn Math." It really opened my eyes to how everyone learns differently, how to present math in a fun way, and how I want to teach math in my classroom. We have math everyday from 2:15-3:15. Imagine. Third grade students having math at the very end of the day. Let me tell you, it is a hard task to keep them focused. Before I began, I promised that I was going to do my best to make math engaging, but that would mean that they had to promise to give me their best. Surprisingly, that two-way promise worked. I have made sure to engage all students during whole group by having them participate and have given them a fun activity for each topic discussed. M&M and Starburst bar graphs, using an egg carton to demonstrate a dozen, and using interactive SMART board lessons are a few of the things I implemented. In the end, I can tell you one thing... if it were my choice, we would not have math so late in the day.
I also took over morning meeting and was very pleased with the community that was built through that. One morning, we stood in a circle and had to greet the person standing next to us using either a spooky voice, whisper voice, silly voice, or manly/girly (student's choice on which gender that wanted to imitate) voice. It was a great way for the classroom to continue to use each other's names, and a beneficial way for them to learn how to greet someone properly. Community and trust definitely play a role in how responsive they are to you as the teacher.