I am writing this not even three days after practicum has ended and all I want to do is go back! I had such an amazing time in kindergarten and am currently going through withdrawal without those little munchkins. Thinking and writing this post has been such a good reflection time where I am extremely grateful that I have chosen to become an educator. I am so thankful for the amazing in-class experiences that I have been able to have so far in this educational journey.
This practicum was a wonderful teaching and learning opportunity for me as a future educator. Given that I was teaching 50% of the time, I had the chance to really get into my grove and find my own flow as a teacher. To be honest, at first, I was really worried about being in a kindergarten class because I haven’t ever had a chance to teach children this young, but it ended up being the best fit for me for this practicum. My students were the cutest and sweetest little munchkins and once again, I could not have asked for a better Coaching Teacher.
During my time in this classroom, I had so many different opportunities to try new things and continue to expand my wheelhouse. I got to take over teaching a whole measurement unit which was a very good learning experience for me. Additionally, at the beginning of practicum, my Coaching Teacher got caterpillars so the students could see the whole butterfly lifecycle as part of their science curriculum. One of the other fun things that I did was take over a lot of the writing lessons that we did. For my last writing lesson, we were learning about fact writing so I brought my Venus Fly Trap into the classroom and we did observations and wrote about what we learned about the plant (how cool is that!).
Looking back, I think one of the coolest lessons was my linked lessons for science and ADST (Applied Design, Skills and Technologies) where the students learned about birds, the nests they build and then as partners, the students got to create their own nest. For this lesson, my Coaching Teacher was fantastic at helping me create and plan for this fun hands-on activity. As a class, we worked hard on our planning process to make sure we were going to build nests using the same materials that a bird would use. The students got to gather their own materials and work together to make their nests. After building the nests, the students also gained an understanding of how hard of a job it is for these birds to build their homes. This lesson was great at interconnecting the science and ADST curriculum to create meaningful learning experiences for the students.
Going into this practicum, a goal of mine as a teacher was to include a lot of student-led and interactive learning opportunities. After this practicum, I would like to think that striving for and finding chances for these experiences is a strength of mine. Learning that is directed by students is very important to me. I also think that during this practicum I learned to create transition times without loss of instructional time, especially with the little kindergartens has become a big strength for me. Finding educational videos for the students to watch while eating, washing their hands or switching jobs has been a huge help for me. Classroom management is another thing that has always been very important to me. In dealing with students this young, I had to really alter and breakdown my management strategies and I now feel very comfortable managing a whole class.
As I am reflecting on my practicum experience, there are still some things that I would like to work on. For example, I feel that I am good with Indigenous content, however, I am still developing ways to embed it naturally and relevantly into all curriculum areas. I am purposeful with choosing the First Peoples Principles of Learning for lessons but that relates more to Core Competencies than to the content areas. I am also excited to have a chance to work on unit planning and continue to develop my comfortability with planning whole units. Additionally, even though this practicum gave me multiple chances for assessment, I am excited to expand my comfortability with both formative and summative assessment in my next practicum. I believe that growing in these areas will come with both time and experience.
Overall I think this practicum was an amazing learning experience and I made so many awesome memories that I wouldn’t trade for the world. In all honestly, the more time I spend in the classroom, the more it’s becoming the only place I want to be. It is time for my long practicum yet?
