We must learn from our mistakes

Hello! Last Friday was a bit of a mix up day. We had the Friday mass as usual in the hall. It was done by third class and they did a great job. It is always so great to watch the hard work and preparation from the classes pay off. Everything went as planned. The mass is usually about 45 minutes by the time everyone is finally settled in the hall and by the time everyone leaves. This Friday was particularly different because on Saturday there was an Irish speaking competition at the local community college where the local primary age children could come and participate. Most children picked a poem or a short skit to perform. These performances were practiced in the hall on Friday in front of the whole school. Not everyone had to participate in the competition, but each class performed something in Irish for the school to see. This Irish speaking competition was created as a way to celebrate the Irish culture and the unique language that is still spoken and taught in school. The students performed beautifully and as you might of imagined I did not know much of what was being said, though I still enjoyed it very much! The remainder of the morning the classes picked up where they left off.
Friday I was able to help some students with their presentation skills, particularly the groups that were working on the games around the world project. The girls have worked so hard on their projects and the class has decided as a whole who will be going to the competition next Friday in Tralee. It was a very hard decision to make but I picked the students who could talk most freely about their country and what they had researched. Each of the groups were to present their projects to the rest of the class. I was the interviewer and the students had to respond to my questions the best they could. It was from these interviews that I based my decision for picking who would compete next Friday. Once the final group was chosen, I took the small group aside and helped them prepare their speeches and go through the parts of their presentation that they needed to work on. While I was helping this group I really tried to focus on the real life application of what it was they were doing. They seemed very interested in what I had to say about applying public speaking to their lives and how much they will use in the future. I will continue to work with this group a few more times this week in order to help them get ready for the competition.
I also taught a lesson about positive and negative space in art. I noticed during this lesson I had a hard time trying to simplify these terms in addition to showing examples. I think I could have done a better job explaining the terms by using a variety of materials. Once I displayed what the students would be making, they seemed to catch on quite well. This lesson utilized mathematics as well because the students needed to create a grid in order to begin the activity. It was very interesting to see what students responded to oral directions and what students needed a visual to comprehend the directions. I was very happy with the lesson I chose to teach because I could see that it was challenging for most students in the class and used a lot of independent thinking as well.
Today I came up with a comprehension activity or game based on a story the students had just finished reading. I picked out the difficult vocabulary and had the students practice their dictionary skills. We discussed the words and I had them use the words in a sentence to ensure that they understood the meanings. The students read in pairs the assigned number of pages. There are review questions at the end of the reading and I wanted to try to make them more interesting. I decided to go through the first bunch with the girls so that I made sure they were understanding the questions. I had created a puzzle to go along with the theme of the story. I cut up the puzzle into 5 pieces for the 5 different questions the pairs had to answer. The students were to read the question, write down the answer, and check it with me before they would receive a puzzle piece. The first group to create their puzzle correctly would win the competition. I realized not even half way through the competition that I had been giving the students the wrong pieces of the puzzle. The puzzles were not labeled and each puzzle had different shapes however each puzzle had the same final image. I was so upset that I had made this mistake. I had to stop the game and get each group to hand up their puzzle pieces because none of them would have fit properly anyways. In the end we went through the questions as planned orally and I will have to find another way to make up of the puzzle pieces later this week. I learned that I must be more organized when doing any sort of game or activity so that this will not happen again. It was enough to see their sad and disappointed faces when I had to call up all of the puzzle pieces. I do know that by seeing how upset they were, I had captured all of their attention and each student was very motivated and interested in getting the correct answers to the chapter review questions. I will use this information for some of my future lessons. In the case of the mixed up puzzle pieces, I have learned from my planning mistake! Until Thursday, Slan!