Wow, I can’t believe that EDUC 490 practicum is over! Four weeks went by so fast. I guess it is true when they say, “time flies when you’re having fun!” During this practicum I was placed in a Grade 1 / 2 at Westwood Elementary and I couldn’t have loved my experience more. The staff was so welcoming, my CT was supportive and helpful, and the students were so fun to work with. The classroom was complex and had diversity throughout but I believe it helped me become a better teacher. This practicum allowed me to find out who I want to be as a teacher and I was able to play around with different class management skills, try new lessons that pushed me out of my comfort zone, and make everlasting connections with the students and my coaching teacher.
Over the span of four weeks, we learned a lot in Grade 1 & 2! Some of my favourite lessons that I taught include: the water cycle, with doing a fun experiment focusing on clouds and precipitation. Students each had their own clear plastic cup filled halfway with water and then topped off with shaving cream to act as the cloud. Students paired up with a partner to share food colouring to represent the water. Students were asked to use their estimation skills prior to the lesson to estimate how many “rain drops” it would take to make the cloud start raining. Once the student’s guesses were in, they began the activity and they had so much fun! We watched as the food colouring broke through the cloud and starting to “rain”. This lesson was defiantly a hit, and I would highly recommend doing this experiment in your own classroom! Another lesson that I loved during our water cycle unit was a “Cloud Scavenger Hunt”. I had made worksheets for students to use for the activity which showed the three different types of clouds we had previously learned about prior to the activity and had a cut out on the page for students to use during the lesson. We did a review on the knowledge we had learned about clouds and then gathered everyone outside to start our “Cloud Scavenger Hunt”. Students roamed through the school field as a group and identified the various clouds in the sky using the ”Cloud Hunt” worksheet and they had such a fun time identifying the different clouds. The lesson was only supposed to be a short 15 minutes outside, but the students couldn’t get enough and wanted to try new locations within the school grounds to see if they can find more clouds. Again, this activity was so fun and rewarding as the students throughout the rest of my practicum, would come in from their recess break and share what clouds they had found. The learning was continued and allowed students to use their knowledge from the lesson during their own time. This lesson was so rewarding and made my teacher heart happy.Â
I learned a lot about who I want to be as a teacher, what my passions are, and how rewarding teaching is during this practicum. The classroom I was placed in was widely complex and offered me strategies on how to be diverse when it comes to learning needs in the classroom, while challenge myself with various student needs, as well this practicum allowed me to understand that each student has different needs to be successful, and how am I as their student teacher doing to adapt to help the students be successful with their learning. This practicum offered me so many opportunities to be hands on inside and outside the classroom, as I attended various parent teacher meetings, learned how to use a reading program, helped organize a field trip and take part in the field trip, I observed many different learning assessments, and so much more!
