New and Exciting (for me anyways)

The past two days of project have been very busy, but exciting at the same time. Yesterday, I observed Mrs. Muir teach two of her seventh grade classes and then I taught the third. I actually ended up teaching one and a half because Mrs. Muir had to step out of the classroom half way through her second class and asked me to take over. It was a bit surprising to me that she suggested that I teach a class by myself since it was only my second day. To help myself, I took notes during the first two classes so I could refer to them if necessary during the class I was teaching. At the beginning of the class I informed the students that one of their tests was going to be pushed back a day (they were, not surprisingly, not very upset) and I assigned their homework for the following day. Then I led a reading and discussion of a poem about The Battle of Bunker Hill with the students. All of the students in the class were very engaging and willing to participate, which made my job much easier. Once we finished the poem, the students worked on a rough draft of a drawing that was due today as part of their test. I was in charge of approving all of the seventh grader’s (not just the ones in the class I taught) ideas for their drawings. The level of creativity and attention to detail that many of them displayed when they came to show me their rough drafts pleasantly surprised me. Despite how nervous I was about teaching for the first time, I really enjoyed working with the students and feel that it was a very rewarding experience. The rest of my day was spent checking off homework assignments and observing the eight graders in a business class that they have every Tuesday afternoon. Today was a bit more relaxed as I played a review game with the seventh grade classes for their test tomorrow on the American Revolution. I must forgot how energetic middle schoolers can be when it comes to anything that can be described as a game. I also collected/checked/graded homework assignments and observed the eight grade classes. On an aside, I never realized how hard it is to learn and memorize over a hundred new names and match them to the correct face!