Aujourd'hui I had the privilege of accompanying Mrs. Baxter's Grade One class downtown to see "Dufflebag Theatre's" presentation of "Dracula." It was an interesting experience to say the least. Today I learned that young children often become quite excited about field trips, and that it is wonderful to have volunteers in the class during such excursions! :) I think that my ability to walk backwards has really improved over the past month or so (I usually do this just so that I can watch the entire group of kids as we are in transit)... but that strategy was put to the test this morning by a few children who decided it would be fun to out-walk me! :)
Thankfully, we somehow managed to stay together, cross the street, and enter the Fergus Grand Theatre without any major incident. The play was quite comical - a nice blend of improvisation with audience involvement. Count Dracula was, in my opinion, the best character and her ability to speak in accent for over an hour was truly impressive! The kids really seemed to enjoy this performance, and only needed a few reminders to keep their feet off of the seats ahead of them, etc. :)
We walked back to the school and the students ate a late snack, as our schedule had been altered because of the travel time. After the students ate, we talked a bit about our favourite parts of the play, and certain features of the performance that we found to be particularly striking. Next, we tried out our own acting skills with a game of Halloween-themed charades and Pattern Master. I led the class in a series of "repeat after me" songs, and then I provided them with some free-choice activity time. A number of the students saw this as an opportunity to draw some detailed pictures for Mr. Cassano and Mrs. Hopf, which I delivered to the office upon the arrival of the occasional teacher who was taking over for the remainder of the day. :)
Since my day was rather short - due to the fact that I was only responsible for planning time - I returned home a little later on (after doing a little organizing of my own materials in the classroom) and took some time out to read "Assessment That Informs Instruction," which is one of the books in the Early Learning Program recommended by the Elementary Teachers' Federation of Ontario. I WISH THAT I HAD READ THIS BOOK ABOUT 1.5 YEARS AGO!!! :) Assessment is one of the areas that is perhaps the trickiest in my Kindergarten experience. You don't want to put children into test-ish situations, because that doesn't provide a good example of what they actually know... however, at times it seems that there is pressure to record data and you wonder exactly how to best go about doing that so that the assessment is authentic (or maybe I should speak for myself here, but this is the case for me! :)). We have these "Developmental Records" that we are supposed to use to track the progress of every student, and I think that they are really great... but somewhat 'utopic.'This book really opened my eyes to new ways of assessing students - and it also alerted me to the fact that I have been observing perhaps more than I thought I had been! (Digital photos of students at work, videos, and samples of conversations/jot notes are all forms of assessment that are recommended for Kindergarten, as these allow the teacher to view the students in their "natural state of play"). I am going to make use of the suggested Observation sheets and charts to get a little more organized in the area of assessment for next week and beyond. I also have been meaning to have the students create portfolios since the first day of school. This is something that I would still like to attempt to do, especially now that I have a better idea of how to go about implementing a system!
Have a great PD Day tomorrow, and I'll see you on lundi!
Mlle Craig
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