A disaster today

Well, it has been a while since I have updated! So I have taught twice this week. On Tuesday, the lesson went fairly well. The students are getting more comfortable and therefore must get silly with me! A. decided that he would ask about sex or you know the age of consent, and he was dead serious! And well I just told him it was an inappropriate to be discussing this, and the other kids thought it was funny because A. was serious! I am not really sure if he was asking what the age of consent is today, but I have left it. I think he was asking because we were talking about dowries and girls getting married around 11 to 13 years old. But more I think he trying to get a rise out of me. So I am leaving it!


Anyways, today was kind of a disaster. We went over last days homework, which went well, silent reading went well, then the disaster occurred. I split them into 4 groups, then assigned them a chart to fill out as a group. Without explaining the logistics, they moved out of their original groups, (which Mr. S and I had made to put high, medium, and low ability) and that is when disaster occurred. I almost felt like crying because I was getting marked, but I kept my composure and moved on and thought of ways to make it better. And in the end we just moved back into rows and discussed the answers together. We didn't finish today's lesson, nor did we meet all of the objectives and do the actual assignment!


Feeling really bad about everything and thinking it went so bad, I had my meeting with MRS. J (my marker) and she seemed pleased. She asked me what I thought went well, and I said the silent reading and nothing else! 
But this is what Mrs. J said went well:
        *review of questions
        *made good use of silent reading time for administration (checking homework)
        *organization for record keeping
        *don't fluster easily, teacher presence, good rapport with the kids, good presentation voice
        *Circulate to maintain for: on task behaviour, understanding of assignment concept, provide assistance  
          as necessary
So I was grateful for what she said, because I would have never come up with those things! I didn't post this to toot my own horn, it just made me feel better about my crappy lesson. I can't fail the practicum, my mistakes are mistakes that are natural to make since I have never taught before. Alas, I think even though I felt bad about this morning everything is going pretty good.


Next week I pick up my grade 9 class, which should be interesting. I kind of like just teaching one class. I must say, that there are kids in both my grade 8 and 9 classes that have marks ranging 0% to 75%...not so good. 


I am really excited for tomorrow...Having dinner with my friends Tina, her husband Chris and new baby Emma and Kiri. We will bake cookies. YUM! Then down to the US of A with my girls to get some dresses for Allison's wedding. Oh what fun!