Moving On Up to Year 4

As I spent my day with my group of Year 4s, I am beginning to notice a big difference in the maturity and independence levels compared to the Year 3s. There are 29 students in my class and I am working with a first year teacher. Jacqui Matson (my cooperating teacher) is absolutely the best! I think I relate well to her in that we are both new to teaching on our own. She has some great ideas and has done an excellent job of defining her classroom in just 9 months of teaching. During my time with the Year 4s, we are studying the Settlement of Australia. This will probably be a unit for both the kids and me to learn! Since I have very little experience with Australian history, Jacqui is going to teach it. Yea!

As a way for my class to get to know me, I used a PowerPoint I created about myself with maps and pictures of my family, school, etc. I showed the same PowerPoint to my Year 3s back in August and the responses from both were so different. The Year 4s were more intuitive to learn about why the states were labeled with two letters on the map I showed and why Hawaii and Alaska are found underneath the country map, but are not even located there. However, the Year 3s thought the color of the map was pretty and they all wanted to share about their own dogs when I showed them the slide with Bruiser on it. I really liked the higher level of thinking I get from the 4s. I mean, I was showing them a slide of things that come from Tennessee and I had one student raise his hand and said, "I thought you sounded so familiar and now I know why." As I looked at the screen, I had a picture of Miley Cyrus up and I knew exactly what he meant. Ahhh, to be compared to Miley... such a compliment! Oh well, at least we're recognized for something... dang southern accent!

This week I will continue to observe what the daily routine for their class is like and on Friday I will begin teaching. I think I'm going to enjoy my six weeks with the Year 4s!