Survivng the 5th Grade

If you have read my other blog posts, you will see that my very first post was about how I was assigned to teach 5th grade this semester and how extremely upset I was and also took you through my first day of being in the classroom. Well, after almost 3 months of being in 5th grade, I can tell you that my initial fears and doubts were proved wrong! Fifth grade scaries are not so scary after all!

Throughout the semester, I taught four lessons; two in Social Studies, one in Mathematics and one in Science. Some went well and others did not but my students stuck with me even in the hard times and pushed through! But my feelings about this semester did not come from my lessons but my groups of students in general. Getting the experience of teaching 5th grade content was awesome and I learned a lot of new things but my students made the biggest impact.

If you read my first post, you know that before this I only had experience with younger grades (K-2). Whenever I thought about 5th or even 4th graders, I thought about big, scary, rude, not-loving, and basically over being in school. I felt that the younger kids still loved their teachers and respected them while 5th graders probably had gotten over that adoration of their teachers. Again, I was completely wrong in this thought. Not only were my kids sweet, caring, and willing to learn but they also grew extremely attached to me. So attached in fact that on my last day one student latched onto me and wouldn't let me leave, he had to be peeled off by the classroom teacher.

From this experience I now know that I am able to teach at a 5th grade level, by that I mean content at this level and being able to effectively go through a lesson with my students. And I also know that I can connect with students of that age group. I never thought this would happened but to be honest I almost cried walking out of that 5th grade class on my last day! Now, I have received my internship placement for next semester and I am back where I wanted to be in Kindergarten *yay!!!* but I will really miss those 5th grade kiddos and hopefully again someday I will have an opportunity to teach at that level.