Where has the time gone??

It is February 9th! Wow! We only have two weeks until the end of our block classes until we are released as official student teachers! I start full time teaching in 3.5 weeks. OMG! I am nervous, excited, scared, anxious, + a million other things. Tomorrow I am teaching my first whole class lesson. It is a social studies lesson that I have been planning for probably 3 weeks. I want it to be perfect. One thing that I have learned though, is that no matter how perfect you make the plan, it has to be changed. When you get up in front of all of those eager faces and they don't do things just like you imagined they would in your head, you have to be flexible enough to change the direction of your lesson to fit their needs.

Something my wonderful cooperating teacher reminded me is that the students have not seen my lesson plan. They have no idea what is scripted for me to say or what I anticipate their answers to be. They have no idea how long we are supposed to spend on a certain part of the lesson. This means that if I decided to not ask one question or to add in a couple, the students really could care less. They have no clue that my lesson was tweaked. Thinking about this makes me a little less anxious for my lesson tomorrow, but I am still on edge.

I know I will get better the more practice I get, but wouldn't it be great to just snap your fingers and be the best? Ok, I know that is unrealistic and one of the best things about teaching is that you are also a student who is constantly learning. Wow! I'm excited!!!