Hello again! Time for my second day!
My schedule for Monday to Thursday is nearly the exact same.
So, I started the day in Fionnuala’s class. The children started up by telling
their news. This took up most of the time I had in the class and for the last
few minutes Fionnuala showed around caterpillars in cocoons. I’m not going to
lie, I found it pretty interesting seeing as it is shown to six-year-olds! It
was a nice change to shadow the class today and see how the class is taken as a
whole by a teacher. Next, I headed into Eilís’ room. The children were learning
their lefts and rights. That’s confusing at first in English, let alone Irish! I
had fun demonstrating which was which to the students. It was nice to teach
them again individually, as you feel that you’re getting to know the child’s
personality better and I think it’s easier for them to understand. It was great
to see their improvement and their sense of achievement when they turned the
right way.
I have no idea how I managed to get away with tying no laces
at lunch or break yesterday!! I tied so many today that it’s unfathomable how I
tied none yesterday. Heck, I even was asked to help one girl to put on her shoe
with Velcro straps! This mixed with all the chatty, lively children and the
arguments was enough to keep me busy and utterly tire me out. Eating and
chatting calmly in the staff room was a relaxing change to working with the
children. Don’t get me wrong, they’re so much fun to work with, but boy am I
tired now. I just don’t get how they have that much energy!
Credit: cdn.dailyclipart.net
In Maria’s classroom I firstly helped out with maths. The
children understood the task. The main challenge was to convince them to
continue to work. Throughout the past couple of days, I’ve found this more
challenging than explaining, but I’m learning. Then I repeated my tasks from yesterday,
writing names, sticking in and photocopying. This time I got the chance to work
with a different group. I’m excited to get to know the whole class through the
week. After that I was meant to help out in a special help class, but the
teacher Ruth was correcting Drumcondra papers, so instead I was sent to the
office with Áine. There I put stickers on new textbooks and was taught how to
cover them. I know, I know, I would be jealous too. It just sounds so exciting,
doesn’t it? To be honest, I spent most of the time smoothing out bubbles in
covers I’d not gotten quite right. By the end my covering was improving though,
I must say.
With the mixed older class, I did geography. Helen asked me
to work with the second classers if they had any questions. One of the
questions stumped me for a second. It’s funny how quickly you forget what
you’ve learned in primary school. I got a good few more questions than normal,
so I felt I had more of a job to do, which was nice. Finally, I went to first
class, taught by Valerie. She was sick yesterday, and I just met her today. She
was lovely and allowed me to go around helping the children with their maths. I
spent most of the time helping a girl with her counting, and by the end, she
could just about do it by herself, which was great. I got to stand back and
watch the class learning some vocabulary before the bell went, and I headed
home.
That’s all for today. Don’t worry, there’s more to come
tomorrow! See you then.
Ceri
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