A Typical Day in Scoil Bhride

In my second grade class at Scoil Bhride, each day typically has a basic schedule that is followed, like many American schools. However, since my CT was very energetic, and obviously second graders are as well, things tended to get a little hectic, so the schedule was not always followed exactly. The teacher loved to jump around from subject to subject, which made sense because of how easily the students were distracted. However, sometimes it seemed that the students were so slow to transition from different activities that the teacher rarely got through all of the planned material. At first, I just assumed it was a crazy day, but by the end I realized that was just a typical day in our classroom.

The day usually began with morning work or independent reading, during which time the teacher, Emmy, and I would go around checking the homework from the night before. We then usually began guided reading with the entire class, and then would break off into three groups (each teacher leading one group) and do an activity with the reading. Then, we would begin Irish. Each week there was usually a theme for the Irish words that the children were learning. For example, one week it was vocabulary related to television shows, one week it was vocabulary related to shops, and one it was vocabulary related to music. It was interesting sitting in on a language I knew nothing about. Even though I had done it many times before with Spanish in other schools (since I never took Spanish), Irish was much more difficult to help the children with. At least with Spanish, I could typically figure out how to pronounce the words. With Irish, the spellings and pronunciations never seem to match up, so it was much more difficult to walk around and help students.

Then the students would go outside to play, and when they came back they would pull out their lunch boxes and begin to eat for about ten minutes. After that time was up, the teacher would have them put the food away and they would start with another subject. After their second recess, the kids would then have another fifteen minutes or so to finish their lunches. It seemed very odd and a bit of a time-waster for the students to have to eat their meals in chunks, rather than just give them a solid block of time to finish eating. However, after the kids were finished, math would begin, and would go for about an hour. This was often hard to get through, since they spent so much more time on math than during any other subject. By the end, the kids were usually ready to be done, and they typically spent the last twenty minutes doing independent reading or working on homework. The typical day in Scoil Bhride was often hectic, but still fun and exciting at the same time. Thanks for reading!

Kelsey