Day 7: Improvement Requires Reflection

Today I got to teach almost all day! I was very excited about it and nervous. I can teach all day, no problem... in English. But I was teaching 4th grade and they need a translator. So I didn't quite know how it was going to go.
Overall, I think it went well.
English was first. Last week when they had questions they would ask the teacher in Norwegian and she would translate for me and then I would answer. The kids got no experience talking in English. So this week I upped the stakes.
"If you ask Hilde for help and then ask me a question, I will give you a sticker." I promised the children as I showed them the awesome stickers I had brought.
"But, if you ask me without getting help I will give you a candy!" A chorus of amazement met this declaration.
Every single child got at least one candy today, most two or three. I think my plan worked out rather well. Since I don't want the kids to never ask questions I am going to switch it up next time. I will tell them that if they get help, or if they don't, either way they still get a prize. The requirement is asking me in English. This way each of the students will be able to get any help they need without fear of losing some reward.

Then the part of the day I was looking forward to the most. Arts and Crafts! I have always loved art time, and here they have designated two hours for art! It is like a dream come true! Last week we started working on our patterns and designs. This week we drew the head and started adding the designs to the paper. The kids were really engaged and I had to herd them out of the door for recess assuring them that they could keep working on it when they came back in.
As I taught this lesson I recognized some things I could do better. So I added them to my lesson plan and when I get to teach this same lesson to 5th grade tomorrow I get to try and make it better! The lesson directly relates to the Utah core standards, especially 4th grade standard 1 objective one.

There are three main things I learned that weren't directly tied to my lesson today.
1. When Hilde has students grade themselves she has three boxes they can check: I'm good at this, This is difficult, and I want to practice this more. I love the last one. It does not mean bad, it just means the student wants more practice!
2. I need a signal for when I am done with instruction so they children know when they can move. Today I used "let's go." as my signal but I thought maybe a specific clap would be better. And it would be more fun as well.
3. I need to be better at noticing students who haven't been commenting or who need a bit more attention. When I am teaching I get so involved in answering questions and teaching that I forget to look for understanding.

Day 3: Hodet

Well, I now know what it is like to teach in conjunction with another teacher. And I can see how it would work. But it will take time for me and Hilde to be able to work seemlessly together. It will probably happen right before I leave. Right now, even though she speaks English, there is still a language barrier. I try to tell her something but she doesn't know what one word means and so the whole sentence doesn't make sense. We will get past it eventually. 

I taught English and Arts & Crafts today. English we sang a song about the months and practiced our verbs and our nouns. For Arts and Crafts we started the Picasso Hodet (or Picasso Head). They made their patterns, which turned out pretty cool. Some of them were really cool! Here are the ones I made. 

Next Wednesday or Onsdag we will do the head portion. I need to remember next time I do this assignment to tell the students that they can't have any white space in any of their squares and if they want white they need to have a white colored pencil. 

The 5th grade girls found out that I like to do nails and so I am bringing my nail polish stuff to school on Monday. If I were to do that in the States... I don't think I could do it in the States. 

There was a faculty meeting today, which they just called a meeting. All 14(ish) teachers were there and they started out their meeting by turning to look at me (all of them) and saying "we want to welcome you to Valen school." Then proceeded to ask for all of my free time. I now have quite a full schedule and I think it is going to be very fun. Lots of English teaching and two days of Arts & Crafts, some P.E. and some random things stuck in there. It is going to be very fun!