Day 72: 13/11/12
Another late call this morning. There was plenty of time to get to the school but not on a bus as the early ones were gone and the next ones were cutting it fine!
It was a year 3 class. There was a student on tp there so she was able to tell me a few things they had been doing! For tp they don't really teach, it's more observing! She has a lesson to teach on Thursday, that's all I think! They don't always get inspected either. Sometimes they can but not often. I'd say anyone that has done to in Ireland would love to transfer out here!!
I got them writing a story first as that always takes a long time! On the timetable then was Cafe time- I didn't know what that was. It just ended up being some reading groups. They all had their own groups- some on word work, some on computers, some discussing texts and others reading aloud. They knew what they were doing anyway!
After break we did some Maths- plenty of sums on the board! Then the kids had to go to Italian and performing arts- no less!! Myself and the student teacher were nabbed by another teacher to start administering a maths test!! Some of the questions were really confusing!! They were year 3's also and I don't think I would have done that well on the test!!!!
Write this pattern in numbers: block, block, counter, counter, counter, block, block... I think it was like 1,1,2,2,2,1,1..
Draw the value of 5 in 59. It didnt say how they were supposed to draw it- draw 50 things, draw 5 tens, draw an abacus. Most of them drew 5 tens.
Draw 36 in four different ways. I would have drawn it with 3t and 6u, then 2t 16u, then 1t 26u, etc. Some of the kids were making 36 with different sums, like 3*12= 36 6*6=36 Are they wrong?? They obviously have a few different ways of doing things over here! Maybe there was more than one answer accepted?
After break they had library. So they all got to go to the library to exchange their books, read a bit of their new book and go on computers. Most of them were on a site called big universe, whatever that is!
Today was easy enough- the kids were good! So can't complain. It was the first time since June that I have worked on a Tuesday!! Hopefully that's a good sign for work ahead!!
I got the train into South Bank and hung around there for a while. I watched Alex Cross and had some food. I got some money out and was happy to see that I've been paid- although it wasn't as much as I was expecting as I was obviously taxed this time!! I should be able to get the tax back anyway so hopefully it will be a good way to save for when I'm leaving the country!!