Time to Start Moving

Today I took the lead in most classes and began to teach most of the segments in the class.  The first class that I took was the Kindergarten class.  I have to admit that I was not impressed with the way I taught the younger students.  When I was demonstrating the different stations, I should've had all of the students sit in the middle of the gymnasium so they could see and hear me better.  When I was on one side of the gymnasium, the students who were on the other side of the gym could not see or hear me.  For the first and second grade class I had the students move to the middle so I did not run into the same problem with the Kindergarten class.

Another thing that I needed to work on was projecting my voice.  I was told that my voice was commanding, but I needed to project my voice in order for the students to hear me.  Now that I have been in the school for almost two weeks, I am beginning to do the introduction for the class when they walk in.  This includes telling them where to sit, doing a sneaker check, and taking attendance for the class.  I have begun to count the number of students after I take attendance to make sure that the numbers match.  This is important because my host teacher told me he did not do that when he first started teaching, and had a new student he didn't know about for about a week.  As a student teacher I have to pay attention to the little things that my host teacher does with the students.  I would not have counted the students if I hadn't seen my host teacher do it first.  Teaching a physical skill is only a part of the puzzle in teaching, classroom management and procedures are very important as well.