Week Seven: Mar. 27-Apr. 2
Fiona Tumulty
Sorry to make everyone at home jealous, but spring has officially arrived in Athens! This past weekend we had absolutely gorgeous weather, and although we didn’t end up venturing out for Greek Independence Day on Saturday, I spent a lovely afternoon walking around and shopping in the Plaka district. While I was out I picked up some postcards for my first lesson of lead weeks, where my students are writing messages to the kindergartners in my student teaching placement from last semester! They were so excited at the idea of sending the postcards to a class in America, and once we mail them we hope to receive responses from them that we can read together.
Speaking of lead weeks, so far everything is going well (I mean as far as lead weeks go, it’s still stressful for sure but the incredible teaching teams I work with make it so much easier!). I’m also implementing my edTPA learning segment this week, so wish me luck with that! I am fairly optimistic about them considering I’ve put so much effort into planning them. I’m pretty jealous of the fact that everyone else at UD is on spring break right now; but I just keep reminding myself that in 2 weeks I’ll not only be on my own spring break, I’ll be spending it in Athens, Santorini, and Amsterdam! By the way, I found it to be a funny mini-example of culture shock when I got to ACS Athens very excited about having a week and a half for spring break, only to find out that the rest of the teachers were annoyed that they didn’t have 2 full weeks! As it turns out all schools in Greece typically have 2 full weeks off for spring/Easter break, but since ACS is an American school and they also get a few days off for Thanksgiving they only get a week and a half for their spring break.
Lauren Montagna
Week 1 of Lead Weeks is almost done! Yayyyy! I think the students are responding well. I am certainly utilizing my teacher for small groups or re-teaching, but I am the one to teach whole group or introduce a topic. Lead weeks give the student teacher more of a role in planning where their clinical educator goes. As my teacher said, “With great power, comes great responsibility.” With my teachers continued presence in the classroom, I think the students are not totally confused about me directly teaching all the time. Only time will tell if they will continue this calm demeanor.
Another theme this week was science investigations! The students finished up their learning about matter and its different states. They began to implement their investigations that they researched at home this week. I have seen experiments from Coca-Cola Light and Mentos to combining corn starch and water together. It is a great way for students to have some hands on learning at home and practice the scientific method. The parents are also invited to their students’ presentation, so it is great way to get to know some of them!
