Day One!

So the first day has come and gone, and it was good. I seem to have been assigned to a pretty good class! My co-operating teacher (Mrs P) runs a tight ship, that's for sure. For a K/1 class, they are very well behaved... hardly any behaviour problems, that I noticed anyway. The school is located in a bit of a Department of Housing area, and so there is a good mix of nationalities in the class. A number of Samoan, Indian and Sudanese kids in particular... which makes for interesting names (which I can just tell I'm going to get confused with!).

My teacher is great - friendly, experienced and was more than happy to offer me advice for the future, and show me how she runs things in the classroom. Oh and she is very organised! She really has to be with a K/1 class, as a lot of today was spent with the grades split up doing different activities. All the materials are ready to go at the start of each session, and she is very efficient in moving the kids around.

Here's a photo of the classroom - it's pretty big, with enough room for a Kindy gathering area, and a Year 1 gathering area!

Today was a pretty full-on day, with literacy in the morning (class split into grades), and then English activity groups. After "Little Lunch", it was Maths, with another teacher coming in to teach the Kindy kids, while Mrs P took the Year 1 kids outside to do number lines with chalk on the concrete outside - they had a blast! Then it was Computers, with Kindy using a Maths game, and Year 1 typing a reflection of what they'd just done. It was interesting seeing what skills they had with using a computer - not too much at the moment. It looks like I'll be doing a Computer lesson next week, showing the Year 1 kids how to change font, size, colour, add a border and pictures etc (hoorah! There's my e-learning task!). Should be fun!

I am a little bit nervous about teaching the class, particularly running the activity session, as my co-op teacher has developed a good routine with the kids and I don't want to go and ruin it or anything. I don't think I will, but I guess I just don't want to be stepping on any toes. Ah it should be fine. I'm not actually teaching until Thursday now, as my co-op teacher will be out of the classroom most of tomorrow (she's the relieving AP at the moment, so is pretty busy!!), and so there will be a Casual teacher in. Will be interesting to see how they manage the class.

Anyway, it's good to be back in a classroom again...