New Year, New Semester

It's common to hear New Year, New Me, but for now I see it as New Year, New Semester. Now that I'm back at school settled in my dorm and the routine of classes, I am anxious to see what the spring semester has in store for me. Before starting this class, I heard many mixed emotions about this course. Some of my peers said it would be hard and a lot of work, while others saw it more as an experience worth learning from. These first two weeks have shown me to keep an open mind about this course and to make sure to work hard. As an introduction exercise, Dr. Smirnova had all of us write some facts about ourselves and social studies on our name cards. This allowed our peers to gain further insight to our past social studies experiences and our personalities. 

I liked how Dr. Smirnova also showed us multiple technology websites and activities to use and create. I made a t-shirt project. I had to decorate the shirt by using pictures that answered questions about myself. The questions were 1. What are the countries of your heritage? 2. What SS teaching or similar experiences have you had? 3. What has made you proud? 4. What makes you anxious about teaching? This activity was fun but wasn't as easy as you first except. It's important that you find pictures that depict exactly what you are feeling, but can also be understood by our peers. I thought this icebreaker was a great introduction to our classmates by allowing us to be creative. I included below the t-shirt that I created. As fieldwork approaches, I'm excited to work with the fourth graders and can't wait to learn new methods to enhance my teaching knowledge and skills!!