Loving to Learn

So, I realize that it has been a very long time since I have blogged about my student teaching! I do so much reflecting on paper, it's hard to remember to do it on here! I am now in my second full week of taking over completely, and to say it simply; It's the greatest experience of my life! I am planning all my lesson completely by myself, and it's nice that my mentor teacher has that trust in me to know that I am planning things just right for my students. I have the unit of dinosaurs, and although kindergarten standards are not dinosaurs, I have learned that that is such a great unit because my students love to learn about dinosaurs! Even the girls!!!!!!! I was also able to create a newsletter that went home with the students to let their families know what we were learning about! This was awesome because, although I have met all the students' families, I now created conversations with them about what I was doing in the class, as opposed to my mentor teacher! So exciting! One thing that has happened that has made me feel great is that my students all the time are reminding me of the things that I had taught them before. For example, we were talking about how dinosaurs had different kinds of teeth. One of my students told me that we learned that same thing about bears (research we had done many months ago) and that their teeth were just like the dinosaurs. It was a great feeling because I knew that I had created a lesson that stuck with the students and that it now created a connection and even prediction about dinosaur teeth! I am just now starting to talk about nonfiction dinosaurs with my students, which they have been begging me to start! It makes me feel awesome that I have learned about my students and their capabilities enough to plan these meaningful experiences for them! One of my students even told me, "I love to learn Miss Cooper. Thank you so much!" Talk about feeling like a teacher! I leave you with this quote, which is something that I try to include in my teaching. Such a great quote! "A teacher's purpose is not to create students in his own image, but to develop students who can create their own image" ~Author Unknown