Playground Wisdom 1 and 2

1. “What ever you do, make it fun?”.

For my March block my unit is in language arts.  My co-op suggested that I do a novel study, but she is open to any good suggestions.  I feel that a novel study would be ok if I found a good book, but  I am thinking that maybe short stories or poetry would be more fun and engaging for the students.  Having a wide variety of reading experiences would open the door for cross curricular learning and a more fun and engaging unit.  I want my students to experience a different approach to what they are presently learning.

I will be starting a class blog with the students in my March block as well.  I feel blogging is important for students to experience.  Students need the opportunity to share what they are learning with more people than just their teacher.  In my pre-internship class there is very little work done on computers, which may by a challenge for me to do blogging, but at the same time it will be fun to see how the students react and how much fun they will have with the blogging experience.

I am starting to see some of the connection which our professors have been trying to teach us about for this pre-internship year.  The connections are broadening my thoughts, my ideas of how students can be taught.  My mind hurts today because of all the thinking and connections I was making.  But, even though my mind hurt, I am excited about the possibilities I am starting to see.  I always believed that learning should be fun but now I am starting to see how it can done in an integrated way to make it fun and engaging for my students.

2. “Practice gratitude”

I am grateful to my family for giving up a good proportion of time I should be spending with them, which instead I am doing endless amounts of reading and assignments for school.  This year has been very challenging for us because we are not able to spend all the times together that we should, but if it was not for my family I know that I would not be able to accomplish this in the first place.  Thank you and I love you.

I am grateful for my friends at school.  Without them going through this pre-internship year would suck.  I do not know if many of us would make it through this year without the bonds of trust and friendship that have developed.  We are like a family, and we should be because we spend more time together in a day then we spend with our families at home.

I am grateful to my professors Julie Machnaik and Garth Pickard for helping me to finally start to understand and begin to make the connections that I have not been able to make up to this point.  The connections are starting to open up possibilities that I did not know were even possible.

Darin