January

January has been insanely busy. Five courses in one month plus unit planning for our long practicum has kept me up too late many-a-night. Stress levels in the group are skyrocketing (with some unexpected results!) and it seems some instructors are taking the time to rethink their expectations. Thankfully.

February 8th sees us back at our practicum placements and I, for one, am very excited about being back in front of the class. The learning that goes on (for me) during practicum is so much more beneficial than anything I learn in the UFV classroom setting. There I sit on my butt for 6 hours, sometimes struggling to focus on the topic at hand. It feels a bit backwards because teaching definitely does not involve teachers sitting on their ass for hours at a time. Regardless of the growth of my buttocks, sitting on it is my job for the next couple weeks. But then, oh glorious 'THEN'! I'll be learning and reflecting and becoming the teacher I know I can be!

(And I probably shouldn't have used the word ass... good thing I'm not a teacher yet! ;) )

Waiting for my students to catch me saying "I do do ...something" - "Ha ha - you said Doodoo!",

Stephanie

Ladles and Jellyspoons

Oral Reading - an essential part of any classroom, anywhere. Or so people say. I'd have to agree. Sharing a poem, or taking part in a Readers Theatre activity can be extremely rewarding and just as entertaining. Here's a poem I shared with the class - I remember snippets of it from my childhood, but was surprised to find one large poem instead of a few shorter ones I thought I had learned as individual poems. Either way - worth the read!

Ladles and Jellyspoons
Carl Withers, A Rocket in My Pocket (1948)


The famous speaker who no one had heard of said:
Ladles and jellyspoons, hobos and tramps,
cross-eyed mosquitos and bow-legged ants,
I stand before you to sit behind you
to tell you something I know nothing about.
Next Thursday, which is Good Friday,
there's a Mother's Day meeting for fathers only;
wear your best clothes if you haven't any.
Please come if you can't; if you can, stay at home.
Admission is free, pay at the door;
pull up a chair and sit on the floor.
It makes no difference where you sit,
the man in the gallery's sure to spit.
The show is over, but before you go,
let me tell you a story I don't really know.
One bright day in the middle of the night,
two dead boys got up to fight.
(The blind man went to see fair play;
the mute man went to shout "hooray!")
Back to back they faced each other,
drew their swords and shot each other.
A deaf policeman heard the noise,
and came and killed the two dead boys.
A paralyzed donkey passing by
kicked the blind man in the eye;
knocked him through a nine-inch wall,
into a dry ditch and drowned them all.
If you don't believe this lie is true,
ask the blind man; he saw it too,
through a knothole in a wooden brick wall.

Back to School

Hard to believe that my Winter Break is on its last legs... back to school tomorrow morning at 9am. I'm excited to see my fellow classmates, but I also know that going back to school indicates that I have a lot on my plate for the next four months or so. January will be busy with lesson/unit planning and regular class workloads, then February, March, April, and a bit of May will be practicum #2. I may have little to no life in a matter of weeks! March gives us a bit of a break here in Abby - we get two weeks of Spring Break (so, away from our practicum), but one of those weeks will see us back at UFV doing random classes and listening to different speakers and the like. Seems that the Chilliwack district only gets one week, so will be missing a week of their practicum to come to these random classes. I think they lose out more than I do -- the classes they're in charge of will be handed back to their Teacher Mentor for that week. My students will all be on holidays.

Anyhoo... lots to do. So today - relax and socialize.