Teaching Portfolio: Taller de Práctica Docente: Primary

During my practices I worked with a second grade of children, kids from about 7 years old. At this age children are becoming independent. Physical, cognitive and social skills develop rapidly now. As children of this age gain more experience of the world outside the family, they become more involved with school, hobbies, sporting activities and friendships. This is a crucial time for developing confidence in their abilities.

Teaching Context

Second year was a small group of kids. They were 20 children. Because of this, I had the opportunity to build stronger relationship with students.

Talking about the arrangement of desks I have to say that it is the traditional one but the classroom space it is small, so I couldn´t move freely, and I couldn´t implement games with kids that allowed them to move around the class.

Apart from that, I felt very comfortable during my practicum!

About my primary practicum

As I said before, the original aim of this experience was to accomplish with the practicum period, and to continue learning from children. Kids have always many things to teach us if we really want and be able to learn from them.

During primary level I made use of less resources because I have to follow the workbook of the class and some worksheets that the teacher gave to me. In spite of that I also made use of games to catch their attention and to make the experience meagninful for them too.

A skill I found necessary with 7 years old childen was to be “imaginative”. I had to be creative when preparing lessons and think of ways to keep kids attention because they have a very short attention time, so creativity is a must!

What I learned from this experience is that with kids of this age we must always be ready and prepared for the unknow, they are unpredictable so patience and organization are important when dealing with specific situations like boredom, anxiety or when they are restless.

So, if I had the chance to develop this experience again I should prepare my lessons with more dedication taking into account their needs and wants when posible.

Of course this experience was meanigful to me because I gain the experience that I was searching for at the beginning of my practices. Teaching is a lifelong learning process and there is always something new to learn.