Welcome to Grade…. 5??

   Today I heard back from my cooperating teacher who will be having me in his classroom this upcoming March for eight weeks (I had sent him an email introducing myself last week.) He seemed very enthusiastic and supportive, from what I could tell from his email!

The big surprise to me, however, was that he taught Grade 5! As some of you know, I am in the senior years stream and my last student teaching placement was with Grades 10, 11, and 12. I’ll admit, at the start I was pretty apprehensive. My mind was racing: “Can they all read?”, “Can they all write?”, “I can remember how my classes were set up when I was in high school but I remember nothing from elementary!”, etc.
    After a few deep breathes, however, I regained my composure and really began thinking about it. I think Grade 5 will be awesome! In the professional aspect, a placement outside of my focus will give me more experience and could be seen as a positive thing to future employers. I will definitely see it as a positive experience! On a personal side, I tend to think that in Grade 5 students may tend to “enjoy” school more than a Grade 12 student who is ready to start university/college/work or any number of other things. Is this a correct assumption or a generalization?

    Another BIG positive is that I may be able to use whole brain teaching with them! (I haven’t talked to my cooperating teacher about it yet). I hear again and again in the WBT community about how much early years students love WBT (although my Grade 10’s loved it just as much!) I am excited to see the difference between the Grade 10’s that I used WBT with in the fall and the Grade 5’s. I am thinking that it may be easier to incorporate with younger years because you don’t have to spend as much time getting them to “buy into” the idea as you do with senior years. But again, this could be a generalization.
    All in all, I think that it will be a great learning opportunity and I can’t wait to start! 🙂