I took a few pictures of my classroom. A huge thank you to all the people in my family who sent stuff for my classroom; you made it perfect. I have a wonderful space to teach in and I hope that I can make good use of it! I'll let the pictures do the talking here; essentially there are four stations in the four corners of the room. Each class will begin with 10-15 minutes of a Stations/Centers activity. One is Calendar/Weather, one is a Silent Reading corner, and the other two are rotating stations where I will have activities that go along with what the students are learning; reinforcing vocabulary and the like. The students will do one station a day and I teach four days a week, so there are four stations for each class each week. Other than that, things are pretty self-explanatory. I rigged up a little stand for my projector today. The computer will sit on top of the desk and the projector is underneath. Now to make sure that never gets knocked over! As for my seating arrangement - its something I'm trying. We'll see how it goes. The pros to me are that the furthest "back" anyone sits is behind just one other person, and I can move down the center aisle and have quick and easy access to each student. However, its a little different. I guess I can always change things if I don't like it.
In addition to planning and setting up my classroom, I just finished reading Teaching with Love and Logic by Jim Fay and David Funk. It offers an incredible perspective on discipline and classroom management and I'm looking forward to trying a few of the techniques. (Thanks, Laura Z... I've learned so much!)
Elementary Educators and Bilingual/ESL teachers... any advice you would have for me would be greatly appreciated! I'm not sure I know what I'm doing.
Anyway, without further ado, here are the pictures!
Wow Hannah - everything looks great!! I'll be praying that all goes smoothly for you and you have a blast teaching English in Mexico. :)
ReplyDeleteIf anyone sends you advice you can feel free to pass it along to me. :) My latest adventure-to-be started 2 weeks ago when the pastor of the church here approached me about a dream, vision, or something that he had. Apparently I had started an Kids Club to teach the kids of the church English. Would I pray about doing something like that? So I've been working hard to create a plan and gather resources (I'll be using one of the classrooms at the school - no electricity, a chalkboard, and some benches!!). The demographics of my kids will make it interesting. They're 9-14 yr. olds, but time will tell if they all can read Creole even. We'll begin meeting once a week when I return in September...I'm so excited but nervous too. I'd appreciate your prayers if you think of it - I humbly need lots of grace and help as I learn about teaching, especially in this environment. :)
Keep being zealous and faithful Grant and Hannah! Blessings to you.
Love,
Heather
Oh my, Heather... I am counting my blessings at what all I have available to me after reading about your situation! I will definitely be praying for you, and I really think you'll do great. Even if they can't read Creole, you can focus on speaking/listening with them. But that will make for a very interesting teaching experience! We will both probably learn a lot in the next few months. Thanks for your prayers for us too!
Deletelove you!
hannah
Hannah,
ReplyDeleteThe classroom looks great and just like you. We'll be praying for you on your first day!
love you,
Mom W. and all
Praying for you Teacher! It looks adorable!
ReplyDelete