Week 11: Student Teaching

This week was packed FULL!  It flew by faster than I can even remember.  We had a judging contest, SLLC, a visit from fellow PSUAG18 student teacher, Young Farmer's Regional Banquet, and an event for National Ag Day.  So with no further ado, let's dive into this busy week.

We started the week off by taking a small group of students up to State College on Saturday for the Spring Judging Contest hosted by the Penn State Dairy Science Club.  This was a great opportunity to connect with three of my students and be able to connect with other Ag teachers.

I had to opportunity to go to the Regional Meeting for the Young Farmers Association

Thursday evening.  It was great to mingle with these fellow agriculture enthusiasts and

hear of how much they support their local farmers!  

Hit the ground running the next morning, Mr. Swineford and I loaded up the van and took 7 members to the State Legislative Leadership Conference.  I had such a great time at the conference!  I had such a great time with the students and I felt like I was there as their actual teacher.  I have been able connect with the students now for 11 weeks and we were able to joke and laugh together.  We had such a fun time during our community service helping to clean out a pond.  Seeing them have such a fun time while doing this and connecting with the other chapter who were there with us made me feel like a proud teacher!

Selinsgrove FFA members hard at working during our time of service 

during SLLC!  

The last day of the conference, I was able to meet Representative Keller at the Legislative breakfast.  It was refreshing to see his passion for what he does as well as his support of agriculture, education, and most importantly the combination of the two.  He took us on a tour of Pennsylvania's capitol and told the members about his job as a legislator.  Our students were very excited afterwards and couldn't stop talking about what they had learned at the conference and how they all could be legislators in the future.

Representative Keller with members from the Midd West and 

Selinsgrove FFA chapters during the Legislative Breakfast at SLLC.  

After getting all of the kiddos back home from the conference, I had to prepare to get back in the classroom on Wednesday.  Little did I know that my day back at school was going to be a crazy and hectic day.  We had a two hour delay that morning, so we headed to school with shortened schedule but I became a lot shorter.  We turned around and go sent home early so students were rushed through lunch and they were headed back home by 1:30.  So I wasn't able to really teach much that day which means that I really only taught on Thursday this week.

Preparing for our day that we spent with the Kindergarteners!  

 Thursday was a special day as well.  Mrs. Fry was out writing curriculum for the day but I had a substitute with me as well as Miss. Becker, the student teacher at Manheim Central High School.  Part of our experience is that we get to go visit one of our cohort members and what how they teach, their classroom environment and get to check out their programs.  Miss. Becker chose to visit us at Selinsgrove.  She was able to watch the Building Construction students finalize their wiring projects, the Ag Foundations classes complete a lab about fertilizers and nitrogen content.  The Parli Pro team was even able to practice for Miss. Becker and get some feedback on their performance.  I hope that she really enjoyed her day with us at Selinsgrove because we enjoyed having her!!

Ag Foundations students working on their lab to determine the

amount of Nitrogen in potting soil.  

Friday I was with the rest of my cohort in a professional development day where we were able to digitally connect via Zoom.  We had a meeting with the Penn State Teach Ag Team and each of us were able to talk through one of the lessons we have done so far that didn't quite work out the way we thought it would.  I actually had a hard time finding a lesson to pick as usually Mrs. Fry or Mr. Swineford talk through each of my lessons with me about what went good and what could be fixed for next time.  I was able to find one that I wanted a little more feedback on and was really happy with the remarks that my peers gave me!

While I was not in class, my Ag Leadership class were busy promotion Ag Literacy as part of National Ag Day.  They had been preparing this week to head to the Kindergarten classes to read a book and help them to realize that both Plant and Animal Agriculture are responsible for producing all of the food we eat.  This was a part of the Farm Bureau's event for National Ag Day and Ag Literacy.  They supplied each of the classrooms with the book Tyler Makes Pancakes and our members went to read the book and play a game of bingo with the students to help them learn about how all of the ingredients for pancakes come from Agriculture; just like all the food we eat!

Learning all about how we get the ingredients for pancakes!  

Headed into this week, we have another busy, busy week.  I have a visit at the beginning of the week from my supervisor, Dr. Curry, and I am excited for him to come see me in action since I have grown over the past few weeks.  We also have many students who are going to put themselves in my shoes and all Ag Teachers across the nation as they are going to teach a class as part of our Self Concept unit.  To round out the end of our short week, we have our banquet! I am super excited to see all of the hard work of planning come together and see the expressions on the students' faces when they are recognized for their dedication and effort that they have put forth all year!

Check back next week to hear how all of this goes!!