Loving the 1st grade!

So today when I went to the classroom in the afternoon I was able to observe a 1st grade classroom at a British Primary School today! It was interesting at first, the liaison left me in the staff room to wait for my teacher for a half an hour....then my teacher took me to a classroom in the 1st year corridor, which smelled like pee at one point, except for the classroom I was in! So that was good! I talked to the teacher, she introduced me to the children and they all stared at me and started to say "Oh she's from America!" And they smiled, adorably. :) I then walked with them and a helper to voice lessons, I was at the back of the line and 3 young boys started to ask me questions, one held my hand, they asked me where I was from, what my mother and father's name were, if I had a dog, what it's name was, my cats and everything. It was so adorable! Then during the voice lessons I watched them sing and they were very good! It was funny to hear their accents come out while they were singing! :)

I went back into the room with the children and the teacher did a great job of getting their attention and getting them to sit down and be ready to learn. She then started a lesson by having them count up by 2's, 5's, and 10's as a class to 20 and 100 and backwards as well! This was something that surprised me a LOT! I had never seen a class learn/recite counting down instead of up. I know that they teach it, but every classroom I have seen hasn't had it be a very big part of learning numbers. After counting she put up some problems on their smartboard. She used this paintshop/kids program that had everything from making your own pages with words, to using highlighters and pens of different colors to draw, colour, and write on the page she had up. She had the children show me how to use it later on in the class and it was very helpful :) For each of the numeracy problems she put up (they were working on solving word problems) she would have them pick out the important parts of the problem and she would highlight them with the highlighter in the program she was using. The pen she held in her hand did it on the computer screen for her, on the projector and the computer it was hooked to. She then also had them talk about the problem and solve it, she even had some of the children come up and solve problems using the smartboard. The children seemed to be very inclined technologically with this smartboard in their classroom. I would guess, and it seemed to me, they used it a lot and were very familiar with it.

The teacher had me work with one group on doing halfs and quarters of things and they did a worksheet on it. They had me help them a lot and they all asked me questions as we went along as well. It was a great experience to talk to these young students because I have not be able to experience this age of British culture till now. Overall I feel that the young students of England are just like those of the US, but have more proper grammar. :) They both are the future of each of their own countries, and I feel that the students want to learn and become the best that they can be when they grow up, and each of their own countries is doing the best they can in order for that to happen.

I would have liked to have stayed longer in the young classroom at Widey, it was a great experience and I learned A LOT from it. It also gave me the preview of what my 1st graders may be like next year in my internship placement next year!