Great Experience in the First Week! A lot of Learning

The first week of practicum has been hectic, overwhelming, yet rewarding because I’ve learned so much in a short period of time and have made a wonderful rapport with the class. I’ve had the opportunity to teach several subjects: math, language, physical education, and social studies to a grade 6 class. The class is truly welcoming and warm. Here are two lessons I want to share:

(1) ABOUT ME: They were very excited when I presented my “About Me” assignment. If you recall, I had made a booklet/display about my brother and I. I made it into a power point presentation so that all the students could see the sections clearly while I was presenting. They got to know about my travelling experiences with my brother and family as well as the number of times I’ve moved (from Pune (India) to Toronto; Toronto to New York; New York to Kolhapur (India), and finally from Kolhapur to Toronto). I had made postcards so they enjoyed reading them out loud. I was able to talk about different currencies as well since I had a little bag with Canadian & American dollars as well as an Indian Rupee. The students shared with me the global currenciess they had heard of or used. Since my class was so multicultural, there was a lot of input of their experiences and great additions to the presentation. In order to relate it back to the curriculum, I had made it a language lesson. This involved them using a Q-Chart to come up with analytical and critical questions by using question structures such as ‘How would you...” “Why might you...” etc after listening to my presentation. The questions they asked were quite interesting and it showed that they were truly engaged in the lesson. However, I did feel that I could have allotted some time to explain which question structures help in getting a more fulfilling response to learn more about the person/topic. However, it went very well!

(2) YOGA: Just last Friday, I led a Yoga lesson for the physical education period for 4 classes that had combined together. It took a lot of preparation because I hand-drew the pictures of various yoga postures and wrote down instructions. I was a little unsure how yoga would turn out because I had overheard many students saying “Yoga sucks” and “Yoga is only for girls!” I ignored those comments because I knew not having exposure to Yoga of course can lead to misunderstandings or presumptions. As the students filed into the gym, I divided them into 6 groups to play Human Knot as a Minds-On Activity. This really helped the students get used to close physical contact and maneuvering their body around in different positions as they went over/under each other’s hands to untangle themselves. Next, I played very ambient and serene music to create a Yoga aura and split the class into 8 sections as there were 8 yoga postures posted around the gym. All the students got to try all the postures for 2-3 minutes each as they rotated around the stations. To wrap up the lesson, I told them sit down and listen to their breathing while they relaxed. I asked them to think about which muscles and parts of the body they stretched. Slowly as they got up in the end, I introduced them to the Tree-position as I demonstrated it to them and they followed. I saw the level of enthusiasm and thrill all the students had. I really enjoyed teaching this lesson and felt it was very successful! (I learned that the first reaction of someone can most definitely change. I also learned that it is definitely great for children to get exposed to and explore different topics (i.e. Yoga) just to let them get the opportunity to choose if it’s something they’d be interested to continue in the future!)