Never thought we'd get here, but we made it!

This past Monday was our last lesson with the second graders. :( Because our butterflies had emerged and we released them, we had a challenge finding a good lesson idea for this week. Sarah and I decided to use literature as a way to recap what we did during the unit. We started off by reading a book callee Butterfly House by Eve Bunting. This book tells the story of a little girl who finds a caterpillar and raises it until it becomes a beautiful butterfly! After reading about a page or two, we had the students make predictions about the ending. We hoped that they would predict that the caterpillar would turn into a butterfly...and most did! It was good to hear their ideas because it showed us that they remembered the life cycle! 

After reading the story, we had the children fill out Butterfly Venn Diagrams about the different ways that a person can take care of a caterpillar. We compared our classroom care with the care that the little girl gave her caterpillar. 

This was a great activity because the children could really relate to the material, having raised caterpillars themselves. When they returned from recess, the students each filled out an assessment quiz about the book. Once again, this quiz was "about the story" but really...the questions were about the caterpillar unit we just did. Such as "what did the caterpillar turn in to?" The students didn't have to hear the story to know the answer.

This week we focused on two elements. First was assessment. Sarah and I had several forms of assessment for this week: the prediction sheets, the Venn Diagrams, and the final butterfly quiz. These were good forms of assessment because they each assessed a specific thing.
Secondly, we focused on differentiating instruction. Starting the lesson off with a story was something we hadn't done yet. Therefore, it was a completely different form of instruction than we had been using. This was a good technique to use with for our ELL students because it was a visual representation as well as an auditory reminder of what happens to caterpillars. Also, Sarah and I write all key notes on the board so that our ELL and visual learners can have something to refer back to. We also had a lesson extension because one of our students tends to complete his work before his peers. For this student, we brought extra literature for him to look through if he had the time.
All in all, it was another great lesson. I'm sad that its over...I was slightly surprised that I was so sad to leave these kids. We were given thank you notes and hugs as we left! I guess they liked us too! Can't wait to visit them in January!

TTFN!

Almost there....

So this week our mesh nets were chock full of butterflies! Our late bloomers are so beautiful! This week we only had one focus, incorporating engineering and technology into our lesson.

This was somewhat of a challenge for us because I feel as though our content, butterflies, isn't too hands on. However, we made it work. This week Sarah and I created butterfly life cycle models with our students. We used paper plates as the background and glues various items such as leaf cut outs, twigs, and pasta onto the plates. For our technology focus, Sarah and I made sure students knew how to properly use tools such as glue and tape. They were very attentive while we instructed this and they all used the materials how we asked them to. 

After our lesson, we took the butterflies with us to "release them into our courtyard at college." When we did release the creatures, they must have started getting separation anxiety because they didn't want to leave! Next week is our last week :( I'm going to miss my little second graders!

The latest: butterflies!

This past Monday, Sarah and I took a big risk: we made a lesson plan about the parts of the butterfly! Why such a risk you ask? Well, after not seeing our insect creature friends for a few days, we weren't sure if they would be butterflies. Well...they weren't! However, big thanks to Alisha S. and Lindsay S. because they shared their winged pals with us and we were able to conduct our lesson! :-D

One of the topics we were focused on this week was technology. The room that we work in has no technology, so this proved to be quite a challenge for us. What we decided to do was create a Power Point Presentation for our students using one of our laptops. Then we realized that one tiny screen is not ideal for 21 students to watch at once. So, Sarah and I decided to do stations for our lesson so that 10 or 11 students were watching the slideshow at once, rather than 21. One station was an observation center where students took notes and drew what they observed on the butterflies. The other station was the Power Point Center, where students watched a slide show and answered questions about it. After 10 minutes, the students switched stations; this actually worked out pretty well. Some of the students were concerned that they didn't finish all of the questions on the worksheet, but I reassured them that this was okay. This worksheet was actually going to be helpful to them later on in the lesson. 

The other important topic of the week was writing. Sarah and I dedicated the entire second half of our lesson (when the students return from recess) to student writing. Students were asked to answer the following question: If you were a butterfly, what would you spend your day doing? Since the Power Point Presentation was entitled All About a Butterfly's Life, you can imagine that this was just what the students learned about! Filling out the worksheets during the slideshow was important because we told the students that they could answer the writing question by getting ideas off of their sheets. This was very helpful. Also, before we sent them off to complete the task, we took some student responses and wrote them on the board which created a better understanding of what we were asking them to do. 

All in all it was a good lesson, that had potential to be a disaster! (Thanks again to Alisha and Lindsay!!!) Next week we will be taking the butterflies back to college where they will be able to play in our wonderful, safe courtyard! :-) I hope everyone has a wonderful, amazing, filling, satisfying, fantastic Thanksgiving!!

Lesson #4

Our lesson this week focused on the molting that caterpillars do. We weren't sure exactly what phase the caterpillars would be in but we figured that if they were in the chrysalises, the students would still be able to observe the exoskeletons on the bottoms of their cups. Lo and behold! The caterpillars were indeed in chrysalises! This week we focused on the flow of the class, common misconceptions, and content vocabulary.

First, our class is so well behaved that the lessons have a smooth flow naturally. A big thank you to Mrs. K. for having such a well-prepared group for us. Sarah and I go over our lessons so thoroughly, though, that we always know who is going to say what and when. We also know who is going to hand out materials while the other does something different. Lesson planning is one way that we have been able to maintain a well-flown class :-). 

Second, we identified a couple common misconceptions during this lesson. We clarified for the students that caterpillar skin is NOT like ours. They have a rigid, tough exoskeleton that does not grow and get bigger as they do. We, however, have a skin that is elastic-y and grows with us as we get bigger. We certainly don't shed our skin! The other misconception that we identified was the case of the mistaken identity when it comes to frass (caterpillar waste) and shed exoskeletons. We explained to the students that the small black dots are actually the caterpillars molts while the frass is small pellets the same color as their food! Interesting stuff!!

Third, we focused on content vocabulary. Because our lesson this week contained mostly talking from either Sarah or myself, we thought it would be a good idea to play a vocab game (Jeopardy) when the kids got back from recess. This entire activity went over extremely smoothly and the students worked very well together to come up with the answers. We had the students use our Word Wall to help them with the questions. Overall, this was a great way to go over the content vocabulary we have introduced up to this point. 

All in all, it was a great lesson and I realize how wonderful our students are every time I leave the school! I hope our nets are filled with butterflies on Monday! :-)

Lesson #3...another Success!

Our third lesson with our second graders went very well! After a bit of drama...surprise snow storm, no school, arrival of caterpillars...everything turned out great! The caterpillars were a bit larger than we would have liked, but I think we're all happy that they're not chrysalises yet :) phewww. This week, we focused on three different topics.

First, we had to focus on classroom management. Sarah and I are very lucky because our class is extremely well behaved. We rarely  have to take any kind of action and when we do, they listen to us with no problem. For example, if the students start talking or if they aren't listening, Sarah or I will clap. This is a sign for them to pay attention to the teacher, they show that they are listening by clapping in return. We learned this trick from their teacher Mrs. K. and it has been helpful because this is something that the students were already familiar with. Classroom management-wise, there is something I would have changed about our lesson. I began distributing the caterpillars while Sarah was talking. Clearly we didn't have their attention, so if I were to conduct this lesson again, I would make sure that everything I want to say is said before handing out the creatures!

Second, we had to focus on the Process Skills (this week: observation). This also went over very smoothly. We explained to the students how to properly care for the caterpillars before we gave them out. Also, we told the children how to use hand lenses correctly. These instructions along with the worksheets we gave the students resulted in a nice demonstration of observation by the second graders. They all acted like perfect little scientists and observed just as we asked them to. They are great listeners! 

Third, we had to focus on our conclusion. For our conclusion, Sarah and I made sure to return to the key question (naming the parts of a caterpillar) and reminding the students what they did today. Overall it was a great wrap up to our lesson. The students are always so attentive and it helps make our introductions and conclusions successful!


Can't wait for next week! I wonder what phase the caterpillars will be in!! :)

Our Second Lesson!

For our second lesson, I was more comfortable teaching, but still a little nervous. The group of students that we work with are so great, so I always feel like theres less pressure on us! The three criteria we focused on during Mondays lesson were frameworks, materials, and our introduction.

First, frameworks. Sarah and I chose a framework centered around life cycles and students understanding that they vary among animals. Mrs. K. suggested that we introduce the children to life cycles before we introduce the caterpillars and this turned out to be great advice. Sarah and I decided to talk about the life cycle of frogs. The students actually knew quite a bit about this topic, however, I think the clarification of this issue was beneficial to them. They were excited to share the information that they did know as well as learn information they didn't know. We compared the frog life cycle to that of humans and we discussed how they vary. For example, humans are born with 2 arms, 2 legs, 2 eyes, etc. But, frogs changed intensely as they develop.

Second, materials. Sarah and I provide our students with Science Activity Folders every week. This makes things easier for us regarding organization and this makes the distribution of materials much smoother. We fill the folders with worksheets or whatever else the students might need beforehand and we ask the students to take out whats needed as the lesson progresses. On Monday, our materials consisted of cut out frog life cycle pieces, a worksheet to glue these pieces onto, and blank paper for their journal writing. Everything worked out great material-wise on Monday!

Finally, our introduction. Sarah and I put a lot of time and thought into how to launch the students into this lesson. We threw around a few ideas and ended up having a conversation with the students to get them interested. We told the students that while walking around a lake in their town, we saw a frog. From there we invented a debate over what baby frogs look like. The students were eager to take sides and only 1 student agreed with me that baby frogs look like frogs and not fish (tadpoles). It made the lesson more personal and it created a smooth transition into the lesson itself. 

I'd say it was a pretty good lesson! Can't wait for next Monday! :-)

Our First Day

Well, I now have my first taught lesson under my belt! I was so, so nervous to teach a lesson on Monday, but it went pretty smooth and the kids loved it! With that said, I'm going to talk about the three criteria.

First, lesson planning. I can't tell you all (though you probably already know!) how much I was relying on my lesson plan Monday. It was definitely helpful to have a solid plan for how we were going to teach our lesson. It was awesome to finally put a lesson plan into practical use to see how it all works out. What ended up happening was not what I expected. The students did everything quicker than we anticipated. For example, items that we planned to take 10 minutes may have only taken about 5. While writing the lesson plan for next week, Sarah and I made sure to have extending-the-lesson activities on hand! Also, while talking to the teacher, Mrs. K., she gave us some advice that we are definitely going to incorporate into our next lesson plan as well. She suggested only focusing on one key question, we had 3! This was a good idea because it allowed the students to truly understand the topic we were going over. If we included other key questions, yeah we would have gone over them, but the children wouldn't have as deep of an understanding.

Next, safety was something that we focused on during this lesson. Part of this lesson included talking about the senses. We first asked students to list them, and then we talked about the safety involved while using them. We mentioned how students should waft when using their sense of smell. We also told them that they should never use their sense of taste in a science lesson unless their teacher says its ok. We furthered the safety talk by reminding childen about general classroom safety tips such as no running, pushing, etc. I feel as though these reminders were very useful to go over because the classroom proved to be a very controlled environment for the duration of the lesson. I think its important to give such reminders before any lesson.

Finally, teamwork was another focus of ours this week. I can't tell you how glad I was to have Sarah there with me for my first lesson! We worked back and forth in a great way that definitely made me more comfortable in this new role as a teacher. There was one specific moment during our lesson that Sarah came to my rescue, of course the kids could't tell! We had gone over who would say what and I was going to discuss the senses and then talk about safety. Well, I went over the senses and then my mind went blank! I knew I wasn't done with my schpeal so I looked at Sarah and she started talking right where I left off! Our teamwork was great on Monday and it really paid off being well prepared.

The kids reacted so positively to our lesson that I'm excited to go back next Monday. I hope they're ready to learn about Life Cycles! :-)