Well,
I got the news on Friday … I am going to be:
2nd Grade, self contained,
and GT/ESL.
If you have followed my blog since the summer, I was just moved to 2nd grade math/science at the beginning of this school year. Before that I had taught only kinder & Pre-k for over 16 years.
YIKES!
Now I am going to teach all areas. I am so excited with the compliment, but I am so nervous. I have a big HUGE fear of failure & I would love to hear from anyone who is self contained 2nd grade. How do you get it all in?
Please comment below with any words of wisdom or ideas.
I would love to hear from you!
Happy Teaching!
Karen
You'll do great! Second grade is the best!
ReplyDeleteThanks so much!!! I appreciate your positive words!
DeleteI have been in education for 15 years. NOTHING is set in stone when it comes to "getting it all in". I have been teaching 2nd for two years. I guess my words of wisdom would be finding balance and pre-testing. I have found that pre-testing students saves alot of time and your able to move more quickly through the curriculum without getting bogged down. I do pre-testing for spelling. Not sure if you give weekly spelling tests, but if you do. Pre-test them on words, this helps with your differentiation too ;) I pre-test in math to see where my students weaknesses are. Also helps to show growth. We don't give grades in Science and Social Studies. I still teach the subjects and then use their work as Reading, Writing, or Math if it pertains to those subjects. I wish you lots of success. From what I have followed on you....you will be AWESOME and your students will love you.
ReplyDeleteAwesome words of wisdom! I will pretest for sure! We do spelling tests, & that is a great idea. I do not see them doing pretests. I will be doing grades in all areas. Seems like a lot, but I am sure it is not too much more than I am doing now and less than those who teach 2 class of Language, Reading, Writing, & Social Studies. Thank you so much for the compliment, too ... you made my day! I will become a better teacher!!! I hope I have tons to share with everyone!
DeleteYou'll do fine. It's actually nice to have the kids most of the day (they move for RTI and ELD). You don't get it all in. You need to prioritize based on your MUST HAVE skills before 3rd grade. You also have to move on when not all of your kids get it. You will be constantly reviewing and you may not get to that cool unit you wanted to do. Hope that helps.
ReplyDeleteI am excited to have the kiddos all to myself. I miss that from kindergarten! I am mostly worried about the language side ... and the grading. Thanks so much for your words of wisdom! I love hearing from everyone! I hope to blog more often!
DeleteI've done 2nd now for 6 years- it's by far my favorite. Since you know now that you'll be self-contained, you can start looking at your curriculum and thinking about planning. I took two courses from Fairy Dust Teaching last summer- curriculum blueprints and teacher Mo-Jo that were really inspirational to me.
ReplyDeleteAlso, do you have other teammates to plan with? How do they do it? Your school might have a set pacing already, so you'd just have to decide on activities to get content across.
And what I've found about pre-testing and prepping them for third grade: If your pre-test point toward HUGE GAPS in knowledge- throw the worry about third grade away. This has been my lament this year. If you don't fill the gaps so that they have a strong foundation- there is zero point to laying the second grade curriculum to prep them for third grade on top. That's what we call a sink-hole. And sink-holes never turn out pretty.
And I work with mostly ESOL kids. 17 of my 24 this year. My advice there, vocabulary building through NON-fiction. I know they push for fiction and fairy tales- but it's actually easier for ELL's to learn through real-life experiences than fictional ones. Non-fiction all the way. Weave the fiction in through read-alouds, and writing narratives based on their real experiences.
Enjoy your class!
~Heather
The Meek Moose