Today was my last day of freedom....

^^That's according to my cooperating teacher (aka the teacher I will be spending 10 weeks teaching/collaborating with.) I can't imagine student teaching (or teaching in general) to be as stressful and time consuming as everyone makes it out to be but I'm thinking I have absolutely no clue what I'm in for.

A little background:

• I'm a graduate student going for my certification and Masters degree in Elementary Education.
• Student teaching will be the final step I take towards this since all of my coursework is completed.
• I am student teaching in a 1st grade classroom with 19 children in an extremely wealthy school district (think large classrooms with area rugs, multiple ipads, and mini laptops in every classroom.)
• I have been interning at the school since January so I pretty much know the ins and outs, ups and down, teachers, secretaries, custodians, administrators, security. This is pretty helpful and allows me to go into my student teaching placement a little more at ease.

Since I 've been interning, I have been spending as much time as possible in my cooperating teachers classroom observing so I already know each students name and have gotten to know them and what kind of students they are. I've also gotten to know my cooperating teacher more. My first reactions? We are going to have very different teaching styles! She's unorganized, I'm organized, she raises her voice, I don't. I was a little worried at first that she'd expect me to do things her way but today she told me, "my classroom is your classroom, if you have any suggestions or want to try anything different, be my guest." So that made me feel better. I don't think she's expecting me to be a clone of her or run things exactly the way she does, which is good because like I said, she has a very different approach to the classroom. Other than what I've seen and observed, I'm pretty in the dark about this whole student teaching thing.

The campus monitor at our school is fairly young, also in his 20s, and I talk to him regularly. He asked me at the end of the day "Are you nervous? Are you going to be planning this weekend?" and my response was "I don't know what to be nervous about, I don't really have any idea of what to expect." As for planning......not sure what I'm planning since I'm only starting out running Morning Meeting on Monday.

Overall, I feel prepared. I've completed my coursework, observed classes, substituted for classes (sometimes for a full day), and I know the kids in my classroom and who to watch out for behavior wise. I went to Staples and bought myself a binder to keep papers in and a Teacher's Planner. I guess I'm prepared as much as I can be at this point.

Here's to the next 10 weeks in 1st grade!

~*~Lisa~*~