My first year of teaching ended earlier this week and it feels like earlier this week was 3 years ago haha. However, I wanted to do a few reflections from my first year.
Lots of learning and growth happened this year, not just for me but my students too! I taught a new to the school curriculum (and mostly new to me) and although there were a few things to work out, the students really made great progress in their reading and writing this year. That was an extremely proud moment for me as their teacher.
In addition to all the learning that happened this year, we also had SO much fun! We went outside, played games, had lots of laughs, and some fails (that we laughed about after). I had fun with my colleagues with potlucks, coffee runs, dress up days, and the random things that happened in the day-to-day life of middle school teachers.
Some of my most favorite memories from this year were….
– Hanging string lights and turning off all the other lights for a scary story reading time
– Doing outdoor scavenger hunt
– Sharing my Egypt finds from my Chicago trip with my students (it was amazing how excited they were)
– Sharing lots and lots of stories together about our days
– When I got a Pop-it ball in the 3rd quarter and it became the most exciting thing to everyone (and most needed thing for me lol)
Finally, my goals for next year are to continue working on classroom management. I felt that my rapport with students this year was great! However, there were some holes in my classroom management strategies and those will be fixed with more time.