Week 1

• We got to participate in a professional development and planning day. This was my first experience with a day like this so it was interesting to see what it looks like. We had a diversity seminar, an Edsby information seminar, and a staff meeting.
• Meeting both groups of kindergarten students was so fun. They were extremely welcoming and willing to answer any questions we had.
• Lesson 1: This lesson focused on introducing students to music. I wanted to gain a better understanding of how these students learn best, and what they already know about our topics. My goal was to have a set that introduced the topic well and opened up discussion. Additionally, I wanted my closure to wrap up what we had discussed, as well as to hint at our topic for lesson two. The lesson went well – I received good feedback from students, my co-op teacher, and teaching partner. The students were engaged as we listened to a story/song, talked about sounds, and created our own sounds. Reflecting on the lesson, next time I will bring pictures of the animals to help students recall what sounds they made in the story/song.
• Advisor Observations: Our first observation went really well, which was very encouraging and gave me a confidence boost. I again focused on having a strong set and closure and was able to achieve this fairly well. My advisor suggested thinking more about ways I could capture the students’ attention right off the bat. This could be done with mysterious sounds which students then have to guess what is making the sound. I will keep this in mind for future lessons. In regards to classroom management, I was able to kindly bring students back to our topic when they swayed or started to get distracted. This did not happen much as students were doing a good job of listening and were engaged, however, there were a few instances. For example, one student told a story about a swimming pool and how fun it is to swim. I was able to relate that story to our lesson by asking what sounds we hear when we go swimming (e.g. splashing, laughing). Today I brought pictures to help students recall what animals were in the video, as my co-op teacher had suggested yesterday. We all agreed this made a difference and students were able to better recall what sounds these animals had created in the video.
• Lesson 2: In this lesson students learned about creating fast and slow sounds. We opened the lesson by learning a song, “Clap Slow, Clap Fast”. I then put students into groups of 3-4. I had stations set up around the classroom and explained each of the 4 stations to students. They then experimented with a variety of objects to make fast and slow sounds. It was really encouraging to see how well they understood the concepts, and were able to build on those concepts by creating patterns and singing along to their playing. It was a really fun time! During the stations I went around to each group and asked each student to show me how they could make a fast sound, and a slow sound. Each student had no problem demonstrating this to me. I kept a checklist with each name and put a checkmark by the word fast, and the word slow when they showed me their knowledge. My goal for this lesson had been to try this form of assessment during the activity. However, my co-op teacher suggested doing this assessment a little differently. One way would be to have one station be where students meet with me. At that station they would demonstrate their knowledge of fast and slow. Or, I would do this assessment when students are working on an independent activity as assessment during an activity such as music stations can be tricky. When I did this lesson with the second group, students were full of energy. They had fun, but I found classroom management to be more difficult this time round. For the assessment aspect, I had told students I would be at one station where I would ask them to demonstrate their ability to make music go faster or slower.

Week 2

• Lesson 3: Our lesson today focused on the diversity in music making, specifically looking at the Indigenous hand drum. I was not as pleased with this lesson as I found it less engaging as I put it into practice, however I did receive encouraging feedback as my co-op teacher and teaching partner thought it went well. My goal was to work on time management as I wanted to see my lesson plan time estimates successfully put into practice. My set went perfectly according to time, while I was a couple minutes short on my development and closure. Doing this lesson again, I could bring physical drums into the classroom instead of introducing the lesson with pictures of different types of drums.
• Lesson 4: Today was full of excitement! The students had told me they liked playing games in music, so we played a music sound BINGO game. I played a sound and students had to guess what the sound was. If they had a picture of that sound on their board, they could put a BINGO chip down. I made a mistake in counting BINGO chips and was short, so I was able to fix that for the second kindergarten group. A challenge with this lesson was students wanted to blurt out the name of the sound, however, I had to practice classroom management in getting them to raise their hand. I did this by saying something such as: “I heard piano, but I did not see any hands”. Students caught onto this and it got better throughout the lesson. After my first round of this lesson, my co-op teacher suggested I could print larger versions of the images on the BINGO cards to go over with students before playing the game. This was students had a better idea of what sounds they may hear during the game. I made this adjustment for the second group of kindergartens and I believe it helped them recognize sounds quicker, as well as better understand what some musical instruments are called. Overall the students were engaged and had fun learning about musical sounds around them.
• Advisor Observations: On March 18, our advisor came to observe us again. My teaching partner taught first, then we led the students in a movement break before I began my lesson (lesson 5). I was curious as to how the students would do with my lesson after engaging in the 40ish minute health lesson, but they did well! We had a fun time singing songs loudly and softly. The students were able to take turns being the leader for our loud/soft singing game. With this activity I was able to gradually release the amount I helped students with as they took turns leading when we would go loud or soft. This was something I did not realize I was doing, however, my advisor pointed this out and thought it was done really well. Overall, my advisor thought the lesson went well and that the students were engaged. My professional development focused on management, specifically minor disruptions. I was able to kindly redirect students who were wandering, or struggling to focus. Furthermore, I stopped unacceptable behaviour by naming students while talking, or by using eye contact. Further classroom management and firmness in expectations will be continued areas of focus for my professional development.

Teaching for a Half Day (Week 2, March 16/22)

• As soon as the students arrived, I explained that I would be their teacher for the morning. We had a great start as we went to the library to listen to a story and pick a book to sign out. Afterwards, we gathered back on the carpet in our classroom and went over the schedule for the morning.
• This was the day I played BINGO for my music lesson with the students. We played on the carpet in a circle and after the game students participated in a sharing circle where we each named our favourite sound from the game. This game was a good practice in classroom management as throughout the lesson I was better able to manage the blurts from students and remind them to listen respectfully to whoever is talking.
• The students then had a health lesson where they learned about healthy snacking. They got to sing and dance to a fun fruit salad song, providing them with a movement break. Students did an amazing job at listening, and worked hard on the healthy snacks activity.
• It was then snack time before heading outside for recess. The weather was beautiful and students enjoyed running around and sliding down the snow hill.
• After recess we gathered at the carpet for circle time. Together we sang Nine Little Leprechauns, then read the dual language book, My Heart Fills With Happiness by Monique Gray Smith. During reading, students were able to make text-to-self connections.
• Students then had time for free play and exploration before clean up and lunch.
• Reflection: It was really exciting to be the teacher for the morning. The students were amazing and it gave me a boost of confidence. Overall, I need to continue to work on classroom management, such as discussion facilitating, and handling of disruptions (such as students getting distracted or not listening to instructions). I feel like I am growing and learning and look forward to teaching for longer chunks of time in internship.

• 

• 

• 

Week 3

• Lesson 5: We learned about loud and soft sounds for this music lesson. For my second teaching of this lesson (the first time was during last week’s advisor visit), I tried to be more intentional in explaining the table activity to students. I was pleased with how it went. I found it interesting that some students today were even writing the word loud or soft beside the image that they had circled or put an x through. My co-op teacher thought the lesson went well and that I displayed good classroom management skills.
• Lesson 6: My plan for this lesson was to look at patterns in music. I would show students a picture of an Indigenous Star Blanket to remind them of patterns we see. I would build on this by saying that we can also hear patterns and create patterns in music. Together we would create patterns, such as clap – snap – clap – snap. After exploring these patterns together, students would go into groups. Each group would have cards that represented clapping, snapping, and stomping. They would have a few of each kind to arrange in a pattern, then follow that pattern together to make a beat.

• Lesson 7 (Advisor Observation March 24, 2022): This was an overall review and assessment lesson. Student participated in different stations to review and see what they remembered from the past few weeks. Station 1 – Students play instruments, sang, and danced. Station 2 – Students organized images of loud and soft sounds into a chart, they also had paper towel rolls to experiment with in creating loud and soft sounds. Station 3 – Students had boxes and sticks to practice drumming. Station 4 – I sat with students here to ask them questions (show a fast or slow sound, a loud or soft sound), I also went over music pattern cards with them. To end the lesson we did a sharing circle where each student named their favourite station or favourite thing they have learned in music class. We also did the Clapping Machine song which was lots of fun. After seeing this lesson, my advisor challenged me to think of how I could adapt this lesson to better accommodate just one teacher being in the classroom. The students required some extra attention, such as with the loud and soft sounds. Therefore, I need to consider ways to make it one-teacher-friendly. Additionally, I will consider what the best options are for assessment. It can be hard to assess all students during stations, so it may work better to ask students these questions individually throughout the day.

Overall Reflection: During pre-internship I was able to gain more confidence in my teaching abilities. I now have a better grasp on how to plan and execute an engaging lesson. I was also able to gain more confidence in classroom management and will continue to work on these skills. I am excited to grow more as an educator during internship.