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!
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!!
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! :-)
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!! :)
