My name is Viktoria Botkoveli. I am from Belarus . I graduated from the Physical Education and Sports University of Belarus. I have a Master Degree in Thai boxing and Judo. My degree course included specialization in teaching and martial arts coaching. I have also had several years’ experience coaching women self-defense in Belarus. I like all types of musical and physical activities: winter sports, summer sports, but my favorite is always boxing.
I have lived in Kuwait for 14 years. During my first two years in the country, I worked as a fitness and aerobics instructor. I also taught HS and MS girls at AAG (American Academy of Girls) for eight years. I have been teaching at BBS for nearly five years now.
I really love to play with the preschoolers, and get them up and moving around. We have a lot of fun together. I always take anecdotal notes after my classes; trying to improve and make my teaching more successful each year. I believe that it’s mainly about choosing and trying different strategies, looking for new games and activities. I particularly like the site www.pecentral.org. This site has many good ideas for classroom management, structure of lessons, examples of lesson plans and great descriptions of physical activities for different grade levels.
My new approach this academic year is the Five Fingers Plan. In this approach, at the beginning of the class time all my students give me “five” and together we bend, finger after finger to plan for our class. I find it easier for the little children to move through each activity when they understand the content of our lesson.
In our PS gym I have small sign, that hanging on the wall in front of children- “Golden Sneaker”. Any student may receive that sign if they do something extremely positive. At the end of the class they return it to me to receive an appreciation certificate with their name on it. This strategy encourages children to be positive, helpful, and happy learners for me and for their peers. I also have an end of class procedure whereby my students sit facing the gym rules, the teacher will point at each picture, asking questions about the importance of following the rules. If the class is doing great job, they win one sticker that for everyone in the class. The sticker will be stuck to their class card (every class in PS has a color and a letter; their cards with stickers on them are hanging on the wall next to the gym rules).
One day, while teaching a KG2 class, I was discussing the lesson and it was clear that some parts of the class interactions needed improvement. After a lot of thought, one boy volunteered to give his own sticker to the class to help out! This boy received the “Golden Sneaker”. At the end of the lesson, he received his certificate, and his peers ended up having one more sticker on their collective card.
The top priority for my professional teaching goal is always given to the integration of technology in my teaching process. I use an iPad every day for music in my classes. However, I hope to begin to integrate the Smart board into some more units like gymnastics, yoga, and dance. I believe that the process of the children being able to observe their own performances and being able to integrate some peer assessment into my lessons will be a powerful learning tool for my students.
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