Back again, it's been awhile! Things just get so hectic and I haven't had a chance to sit down and really reflect and record. Looking forward to the term ahead, am getting a little panicky at how much there is on this term and how much i have to get through this term! So reflecting on this and thinking about what happened last term i have decided to really step back a bit on my expectations on how much the kids can do and how much i expect of myself also. I need to remember that it’s important that the kids produce quality learning rather than a huge quantity of work. I think in some areas i’m remembering to slow down and let the kids explore and take their time – for example the kowhai art that we have just completed, i gave my class time to explore working with the pastels and spend time shading and experiment, and before they did their good copy. The result being that each child created a fantastic piece.
I need to remember how successful this was in other subject areas, such as writing for example. Last week i really rushed though a lesson that was supposed to be fun, and that i thought the kids would enjoy. I had to rush because due to one thing or another, my writing instruction time was only 30 minutes long. Instead of breaking it over two weeks i rushed to finish it in the 30 minutes, resulting with the children not producing very good quality writing and myself feeling disappointed in the result.
So for this term i really focus on taking time with my lessons, and not to rush through the learning tasks because we have to go to production practise or cross country training etc.