Welcomed into the classroom.

The first few days at school were pretty uneventful. I observed the room, met the teachers, met the kids and started to get into the swing of the class routine. I am working with what is known as a ¾ MAC class, which means that my classroom and the room next to mine have third and fourth grade combined in one class. The two teachers work collaboratively and have the students switching back and forth between the rooms throughout the day. Through the switching of the classes there are different groupings of students. The classes start out in what is known as their homeroom classes which is the room and teacher they are officially assigned to by the school. From the homeroom groups they move to what is known as t-shirt groups. These groups take half the kids from one class and half the kids from the other and switch them. The next grouping of students is for math when they are split by grade level, third graders in one room and fourth graders in the other. The last group is actually just having them all together. As crazy as it sounds it does actually work and makes sense once you are into the routine.

My involvement in the class was quick to begin. My first day started with choosing a book for story time after lunch. Mr. Popper’s Penguins was what I chose and the kids loved the book. By the end of the first little week I was put in charge of teaching math to the third graders. The first few days of teaching I was a little nervous but soon felt at ease. From there the end of the week consisted of me picking up social studies. With the switching of the classes my room has two social studies periods because we teach one t-shirt group then switch and teach the other t-shirt group.

The teacher in the room next door covers two periods of science in return. Already I have covered math lessons and formulated a four week social studies unit as well as created two classroom bulletin boards and created a calendar /math classroom board. So yes, I have been quite the busy little bee.