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! :-)

Butterflies Rule!

As we're about to start our unit on the butterflies, I am excited about many different things! On the flip side, I'm also scared/nervous about lots to things too. 

Let's see, what am I excited about...

Well, when we entered the class today and I felt immediately welcome. The children greeted us "Good afternoon, Miss Graham" (that will take some getting used to!) and it was exciting to be recognized as a teacher. Also, the students themselves were great! While we were observing today, the comments alone were entertaining. The children shared research articles about insects. One of the articles mentioned that crickets can eat fabrics. The students were commenting left and right, their enthusiasm is contagious! One student commented that maybe this was why there was a hole in her couch. They were so ready to participate that I am excited to do the lessons because I have a feeling they will be extremely receptive and equally as excited for the entire unit. 

I'm also excited because of the subject matter that we will be teaching. Sarah Turner and I get to teach the butterfly unit which I think these children will love. They spent their entire science lesson today just talking about different kinds of insects. I think they're going to LOVE this unit!

To keep the excitement train going, I'm also excited about the teacher we get to work with. She was extremely kind to us and to the students. She's also really helpful and seemed very willing to assist us however she could. I won't mind getting feedback from her! 

Now, what am I nervous about...

Well, I've never taught a lesson. I'm a newbie. I guess we all have to start somewhere, and I'm glad my first lesson is now, while I'm still learning. But still, there are so many what-ifs. 

What if the students misbehave? 

What if my lesson goes terribly wrong? 

What if the students are simply not interested? 

What if I am faced with a question I don't know the answer to?

The list goes on and on. I have mixed feelings about doing my first lesson. Part of me is so nervous I'm borderline dreading it. But, the other part of me is excited to finally do what I've been wanting to do. I honestly feel that I'm going to be very, very nervous the first day. But after that I'll hopefully have gotten the butterflies out of my tummy (pun intended :-] ) and I'll know what to expect next time. 

Theres a first time for everything. And who's not nervous in such a situation, am I right?

Science Lesson Planning

This week, I will go over two questions regarding the issue of lesson planning for a science lesson. 
1. Why is lesson planning in science important?
-I think that lesson planning in any subject is important, however, it can be a safety concern in the subject of science. If a teacher presents an experiment to their students without being prepared, a student could easily touch things they shouldn't, mix items that shouldn't be mixed, consume things that shouldn't be consumed or worse. When a teacher has thought out the lesson, they will be able to introduce it, including reminders of any necessary safety precautions the children should keep in mind.

Aside from the issue of safety, it is important to plan lessons in science so that the students get more out of them. When we watched Sarah's case in class the other day, it was clear that the students were rapidly losing interest in the lesson. If Sarah had been more prepared, or perhaps conducted the experiment herself firsthand, she could have addressed the issues in a more positive way. Being prepared is extremely important when carrying out an in-class experiment so as to avoid situations like those that Sarah faced. 

2. What things are important to consider in planning elementary science lessons?
-The first and foremost issue that should be considered when planning a science lesson is that of safety. For example, does the lesson contain toxins? Should the students wear goggles? Should the children have their arms covered in case of splatters? Any number of safety concerns can be faced in a classroom and therefore should be considered when a teacher is writing out a science lesson plan. 

Also, it is important to consider the children's skill or academic levels. If a teacher presents a great lesson on a topic that is too difficult for the children to successfully complete, they will become discouraged. Teachers should consult the frameworks in order to get a rough idea of what the children should be able to do at that grade/point in the school year. 
Furthermore, minor classroom issues should be considered as well. For example, if the lesson requires group work, the teacher needs to consider how they will separate the students. Will they be grouped based on skill level, on behavior, or randomly (which can have its consequences)? Another classroom issue to consider is the matter of time. How much time will be given for the brainstorming portion of the experiment? What about to conduct the actual experiment?

Lesson planning is essential in every elementary science class. Teachers should try to avoid disaster lessons as much as they can. The best way to do this is to properly plan a lesson before it is presented to a class. 

Sid The Science Kid!

Today's students are more tech-savvy than ever! At first, I shied away from the thought of incorporating too much technology in my future classrooms. However, I now realize that technology is a tool that, when used properly, can help students grasp concepts in a way that traditional teaching methods can't. 

The website I found that is a great online resource for elementary science teachers is Sid the Science Kid!

http://pbskids.org/sid/index.html

When I entered this site, I first noticed that it is extremely kid-friendly. The colors and animations are very attractive and they create a desire to explore the site. On the homepage there are many options for learners to choose from. There is a game section and a video section, as well as tabs designated for parents and teachers. When I clicked into the video section of the site, I had even more options: clips, investigations, songs, and full episodes. The songs on this website would be great for classroom use. I listened to a song called "I do what I do (with the skeleton I got)" and it kept me entertained while supplying information. Seeing as how I was entertained by this song clip, I can just imagine how students would get involved and start singing just for fun!

The educational videos are great as well. They all incorporate Sid in a situation that many young children can easily relate to (example: being in a car with Grandma). I feel as though this allows students to keep an interest. It is sometimes more fun for students to learn from peers rather than from teachers. 

Finally, this website keeps children focused. While I had the window open, but typing elsewhere, I heard a voice asking "Okey Dokey Kiddo, what do you want to do today?" This reminded me to get back to what I was originally working on, and ultimately I was more productive because of the friendly reminder!

I feel as though Sid the Science Kid's website is a great resource that teachers can use to teach elementary science. Interactive websites should be used in classrooms, and I feel that science lessons can benefit from such technology! 

My science story

Hi all! So, I've started a blog... So, I want to be a teacher... What's the big deal? What's the story here?

Well, I'm about to tell you.

I've wanted to be a teacher since I was a youngster in elementary school. I have vivid memories of science lessons that took place over ten years ago and it seems essential to me that I understand what made them so unforgettable. I truly enjoyed partaking in experiments as a kid because it was a break from the mundane. Being able to - and encouraged to - get my hands "dirty" during lessons proved to be a great way for me to learn the material.

Aside from experiments, I have one memory of my fifth grade teacher telling us that she was going to swing a bucket full of water over her head. Oh the horror that was going through my mind! I just knew that my teacher was going to end up soaking wet with water all over the floor. However, as you may know, this did not happen. What did happen was this: my teacher swung the bucket over her head completely, the water stayed put, and my classmates and I were in awe. We wanted to know how this could be. Drawing our attention like she did sparked an intense interest in my class that day. We were intent upon learning how she did it.

Viewing my fifth grade teacher's introduction to a lesson from a student-teacher's point of view, I recognize the importance in gaining student interest prior to beginning a lesson. However, part of me chooses to remember this as the fifth grader I was, and embracing the desire to know as much as I could about science.

What I didn't know, however, was that I was learning about science outside of school nearly everyday. I spent my afternoons on a neighboring street playing with other kids; our fun and games taught us about science around us. My friends and I made mud pies, we played with leaves as they fell, we learned to tell the difference between sticky snow (good snowballs) and the fluffy kind, we understood that the temperature dropped later in the day, we rode skateboards on driveways that had a decline, we sledded down hills, and so much more. Now, I recognize these playful times as informal lessons in learning about the seasons, types of precipitation, temperature, gravity, and we even touched on bits of physics. 

What I thoroughly enjoy about my childhood experiences with science is that my formal curiosity in the classroom led to my informal investigations of the real world. I hope that my future teaching methods will yield similar results and desires among my students.

And that, as they say, is my science story.

Until next time. :-)