St. Patrick’s Day Math Activity

Back during my pre-primary internship, I had to create a math lesson that was St.
Patrick’s Day themed and this is what I came up with. 

I began the lesson by reading this short story called five leaping leprechauns that my mentor had found. After reading the story, I called on five students to be the leprechauns and act out the story while I read it. 

Next I had a big pot and told the children that they were going to steal some of my gold coins. I would count out the amount of coins in the pot before the student would come up and then the student would say how many coins they stole. Then we would say the subtraction sentence. I did this a couple of times with different students. They had a blast being able to steal my gold coins. 

Next I gave students a small gold pot of their own and some paper coins and they worked with partners doing what we did on the carpet. They would also use the dry erase board and marker to practice writing the subtraction sentence. 

Lastly, the students had to decide how many coins would be in their pot and glue them down and then decide how many gold coins the leprechaun took by drawing X’s on them. Lastly they filled out a piece of paper attached to the bottom talking about their pot of gold. 

I made these pot by using this link and printing them onto construction paper. For the gold coins was yellow construction paper and I used a circle cutter that my mentor had. For the paper attached I created and you can get that here.

Below is a few examples the independent activity the students did:

Problems with Mentor

Let me begin by saying that I did not have any problems with either of my mentors. 

This is about the other girl that was with my pre-primary mentor that had problems. 

So at the very beginning of the of the second rotation I was getting ready to leave the school when I was walking past the copy room and the girl stopped me to talk. She asked me if I ever wore jeans when I was with the mentor and I said yes. I know what you are thinking, you should not wear jeans, but my mentor, supervisor, and principal said that it was ok. I only ever wore jeans once a week and only on the day that we were told that we could. 

Anyways, she begins to tell me that the mentor went off on her, yelled at her she said, about wearing jeans. I was confused and said she really yelled at her to the point that she wanted to cry. She said that the mentor said that she had to force me to wear jeans and another intern ,now teacher there, never wore jeans when she student taught. 

I was kind of taken aback when she said I was forced because she didn’t force. She just said that it was ok. I talked to her on a Friday I believe and late Saturday I got an email from that mentor asking for the supervisors email, which I give to her. I ended up texting the girl to give her a heads up.

The intern talked to the supervisor and everything seemed fine I thought. Then during the second to last week in the semester I talked to the other intern and she said things between the girl and mentor was tense. I was surprised to hear that since when I would see the girl and ask her how things were going and she would say fine. 

The other intern told me about how the girl was lying about things to the mentor and that it was so bad that the mentor threatens her about her evaluation. I was shocked to hear about the evaluation and how bad things seem to how gotten. Though the girl was keeping in touch with the supervisor who was supposedly on her side. 

My mentor was making the girl do things that I did not have to do. Like she made her turn in her plans every Friday for the following week. I got to turn mine in the night before. She was having the girl stay until 6 or later almost all the time. I only stayed till 6 one time and the rest of the time I left around 5. When the girl went to pick up her cap and gown which is about an hour drive away, she went there and had to come back to the school to still help the mentor. 

At first with everything that I was hearing about what was happening was such a surprise because the girl is really nice and very charismatic. But then I found out she was lying and not getting things done like she was told and then I understood why the mentor would have been frustrated. I always felt there was something off about the girl when I first met her. 

I would have thought with after the jeans incident she would do everything right. I can tell you that she never jeans again. I began to feel awkward wearing jeans, but my mentor stilled said it was fine and the other intern was wearing them. I felt bad for the girl, but it seems that she dug her self into that hole. 

If I was the girl I would be very worried about the recommendations the mentor will write about her to the counties she is applying for. Eek!

Gifts From Mentors

Again this post is going to be quick and is about the gifts my mentors gave me. 

My pre-primary mentor gave me a caddy full of teacher items and books. She and the students wrote a thank you letter. Also she made a vase with the students fingers as bugs that she gave me at the on my very last day of internship. She was making one for the intern and she said that the students wanted to give me one also. 

My primary mentor gave me a flowering pot with teacher items inside and a gift card to a Reallygoodstuff.com. Then she had the students write to me about how to be a great teacher. All the kids wrote really sweet things. 

Sorry I don’t have pictures of the school supplies that them gave me. It was basic normal things that every teacher will need; pens, pencils, post it notes, etc. When I received them, I put them away into my teacher box.

Mentor Gifts

This post is going to be about what I gave to my mentors at the end of each rotation. I gave both my mentors bracelets from Macys and a $10 gift card. The bracelets value at about $55, but I think I got them on sale for $25. 

For my pre-primary mentor I gave her a bracelet about the beach and a gift card to dunkin doughnuts. She really loves the beach and dunkin doughnuts coffee. 

For my primary mentor I gave her a baseball bracelet and a gift card to kohls. Her family is obsessed with baseball and I wasn’t sure about the gift card. Last time I gave her a target gift card and wanted to get her something different, so I picked kohls. 

To be honest I was not sure how much to spend. The other girls in my cohort all had varying prices on how much they were spending. One girl just made her mentor a scarf and gave her some chocolate. Then another girl was spending $50. 

I recommend doing what you think is best, though keep in mind you will need them to write recommendations to the different counties you apply to. Just a reminder. 

Student Gifts

This is going to be a quick post about what I gave the students in both my pre-primary internship and primary internship. Below is a pictures of what the gift looked liked all packaged up. Sorry the quality of the picture is not very good. 

I got most of the gifts from oriental trading and just bought in bulk because it was cheaper. In total for both classrooms, I spent about $50 or $25 for each classroom and about $1 on each kid. 

Inside the bag there was:

                                             bubbles                                                                   erasers 

                                               pencils                                                       mini beach ball

2 freeze pops

personalized bookmarks

Then I also typed a small thank you note to the students on a green piece of paper and tied up the bag with red and blue ribbon (school colors). And that was my gift…nothing super fancy. 

Semester 8 Reflection

Earning my bachelor’s degree is finally over. Gosh, It only feels like yesterday when I was beginning my first internship and I decided to make this blog to document my journey. 

College has gone by so fast especially my senior semester. I still remember being so nervous to apply to this college and worried about getting rejected and having to apply to another college. 

Anyways this is suppose to be about this semester. This semester was really great and I grew so much into myself as a teacher. Both my mentors taught me so much when I was with them and I know that I can always email them if I have questions. 

Both mentors told me to keep in touch with them, which I fully intend to do. I will truly miss having their guidance. I will miss working with them and their students. I will also really miss just being a part of that school. 

The principal never talked to me about a job there and that is more then fine with me. I was going to say no anyways. I think it is very early and some undecided things going on at the school about plans for the next year. 

I only had one goal this semester and that was to graduate, which I have proudly done. Now my goal before the next school year to get a teaching position at a school.