12.11.12: One good. One great.

Today, I was back on placement. Back with the Year 6 class, back in the chaos of schools, and back in charge.

The day began with Literacy - in which we are teaching the Jabberwocky - I took the lowest set, and we worked pretty damn hard to understand what a noun, verb, adjective and adverb are. We then dissected the first stanza of the poem deciding, based on the sentence structure, what nonsense words were (noun, verb, etc.)  and finally deciding how we each individually interpret the nonsense words to mean.

Tip of the week: if you do the above, do not let the children look up certain words on the internet (mimsy being one) as there are all sorts of issues....

This afternoon, we took a science lesson, 'on the hoof' as it were. I cannot take a lot of credit for the lesson as my placement partner took most of it, with myself interjecting mainly for clarification and more technical information (such as the difference between melting and dissolving). But it was an out and out success. I shall be leading this same lesson on Wednesday, so I took note of the positives and the negatives (there were very few) and as out double act goes, hope that it is fine tuned by then!

As for now, I am off to read a book for my assignment (told you I would do it...)

S x

14.10.2012: One day till Placement 1a

Tomorrow begins placement 1a, and today I find myself wishing my printer was working.... As it is not, I have a lot of documents on my computer that should be in paper format. Guess I will be taking my laptop along with me tomorrow! Despite the lack of printed documentation, I am pretty much organised (for the first day at least!)

I am also in need of buying several hundred books... I could borrow them from the library, however all the copies seem to be constantly out. I know I can reserve them for when I get back into classes (odd system where by if someone else wishes to borrow a book your lease on it drops from one week to two days, and as I live so far from the university and my placement is ridiculously far away, any recalls will have to be patient!) but I would feel bad because I know if I want to take out a book for a week, it means I usually will take a week to read it, and I guess others would too?!?

So, Tip of the week.... I guess I have two:

• Make sure your printer works (at all times throughout the course)
• Save up a lot of money for books, or learn to read dry textbooks at high speed!

Wishing you all a lovely week, mine will be spent on placement with a 'difficult' class. What fun!

S x

23.09.2012: Grey Day, Grey Mood

Today, is Sunday. Today it is raining. Today I feel down (and possibly a bit ill)

Basically I had the worst nights sleep. I think I clocked up about two, maybe as much as three hours. So I am generally feeling a bit tired, both physically and mentally. I'm trying to do my background reading for my first essay, but nothing is going in. Literally nothing at all.

This happens to everyone right?!? I assume so, but I didn't think this early on! Maybe it's my body rebelling at the early mornings, or just my body releasing the stress of the past few months. It is going to be an early night - possibly as early as 4pm if I carry on feeling like this. Its not even 3pm and I'm wrapped up in PJs and a blanket, with woolly socks and a hot chocolate.

Right, so tip of the week: Keep on top of everything. Make sure your notes are kept in order and get things done as soon as you can - because if you leave it and can't download it later you will kick yourself.

S x