Northern Elementary (5th Grade): September 2010

I am student teaching at Northern Elementary school in Bemidji, MN. I have always wanted to be a teacher and I can remember my sister and I always playing school when we were young! I have always wanted to teach the upper elementary grades and I am very excited to be student teaching 5th grade at Northern. My classroom size is 29 students with 14 boys and 15 girls (a great combination!). We have a nice diverse class with different types of IEPs, including EBD, ADHD, and students who need to use the resource room for Language Arts and Math. My cooperating teacher, Mr. Bjerknes has been a great influence on how I am keeping my class management under control and teaching a lesson. He has given me ideas that I didn't learn at BSU on getting students to do what I want, and when I want (such as closing books and putting pencils down, and everyone looking at me before I start any type of direction). I think I am doing well so far, especially since I have made up the whole Chapter 2 curriculum for Social Studies based off of the MN Standards! Some goals that I have in my student teaching experience are to keep improving on classroom management, get to know the students better, and to keep building my confidence in the classroom so it becomes more natural for me to teach instead of nerve-racking! At this point, I don't have very many concerns regarding the class. There are a few students who need more help than others with homework, but that is normal. I am most looking forward to learning more from my cooperating teacher and students, and seeing the students' progress in the end!
Today I had my first experience with Mr. B leaving early because he was sick. I had all of the students to myself (well almost, the sub didn't do anything but sit or stand around). It was really tough at first, but I got through it and the students were great towards the end. They didn't think they had to listen to me because I am not their actual teacher, but using good class management, I got them to be a great class who were quiet and got their work done when I asked. So far I have taught Social Studies, Writing, and Reading to the students. The Social Studies chapter (2) is all my planning and it is very exciting to see students working in their groups that I planned and getting their projects finished on time (I will post pictures of their projects when they are finished)! Tomorrow they will start presenting in groups for their projects and then the test that I made, will be on Tuesday next week. I start teaching Math tomorrow! I am not very good at Math, so hopefully I can do a good job at teaching them. But, I know if I miss something important, Mr. B is always there helping me along the way!

Here are 2 more bulletin boards that I made a few days ago and 2 pictures of the school....