Kelly and I were a little less nervous this time setting up for the lesson, because lesson one went pretty well. We had an idea of how much the students knew about rocks and minerals and had everything planned out. We also had all of the materials ready to go for the students. Once the lesson started we could not calm down. We both became very nervous, because we needed to know facts about the different types of rocks and the rock cycle. We were nervous about what questions the kids asked and if we could answer them correctly or at all. Kelly, my wonderful partner did a great job reading to the class "The Coolest Rock" book. She stop in between to explain what the different types of rocks were for the children to understand. The teacher wanted us to really emphasize the rock cycle to the students so we thought that book would be a great way for them to understand. Even at the back of the book it had a picture of the rock cycle and how it works. I explained the rock cycle and was very nervous because I did not want to mess it up. We also went over the rock cycle song, explaining what each line meant and asking the students what they thought it meant. The teacher did chime in a few times to explain the rock cycle, which was a great help!
For some reason after all the students went back to their seats, Kelly and I seemed to calm down a bit and walked around observing and asking the students questions about the different properties of the 12 rocks. Kelly had a great idea to make a worksheet for the students and to use three of their senses to describe the properties of each rock. We used our sense of smell (wafting), sense of touch and sense of sight. The teacher did have to interrupt and talk to the students about doing a better job on their worksheets, because they were not doing the best work they could. Kelly and I realized we can make an example worksheet of what we expect from the class, so they understand how much effort they should really put into it. We really need to work on time management for our future lessons, because we went over the 45 minutes and did not give the students enough time to observe the 12 rocks. We realized we should have given more time for the hands on activity. For our next lesson we plan to time everything in order to complete the whole lesson. Overall, I would say Kelly and I did a great job and I am very excited to start minerals!! :)
Kelly and I were a little less nervous this time setting up for the lesson, because lesson one went pretty well. We had an idea of how much the students knew about rocks and minerals and had everything planned out. We also had all of the materials ready to go for the students. Once the lesson started we could not calm down. We both became very nervous, because we needed to know facts about the different types of rocks and the rock cycle. We were nervous about what questions the kids asked and if we could answer them correctly or at all. Kelly, my wonderful partner did a great job reading to the class "The Coolest Rock" book. She stop in between to explain what the different types of rocks were for the children to understand. The teacher wanted us to really emphasize the rock cycle to the students so we thought that book would be a great way for them to understand. Even at the back of the book it had a picture of the rock cycle and how it works. I explained the rock cycle and was very nervous because I did not want to mess it up. We also went over the rock cycle song, explaining what each line meant and asking the students what they thought it meant. The teacher did chime in a few times to explain the rock cycle, which was a great help! 
For some reason after all the students went back to their seats, Kelly and I seemed to calm down a bit and walked around observing and asking the students questions about the different properties of the 12 rocks. Kelly had a great idea to make a worksheet for the students and to use three of their senses to describe the properties of each rock. We used our sense of smell (wafting), sense of touch and sense of sight. The teacher did have to interrupt and talk to the students about doing a better job on their worksheets, because they were not doing the best work they could. Kelly and I realized we can make an example worksheet of what we expect from the class, so they understand how much effort they should really put into it. We really need to work on time management for our future lessons, because we went over the 45 minutes and did not give the students enough time to observe the 12 rocks. We realized we should have given more time for the hands on activity. For our next lesson we plan to time everything in order to complete the whole lesson. Overall, I would say Kelly and I did a great job and I am very excited to start minerals!! :)
Laura,
ReplyDeleteI really feel like we are getting such great experience by teaching science at this school. It is one thing to read about teaching and another to get up there and do it.
I am really enjoying teaching! I think we are all nervous in some respect when all those little eyes are peering at us and expect us to be experts on whatever we are talking about... This can be intimidating; however, it sounds like you have a very helpful teacher and you both handled your lesson with success, Congratulations! Your teacher may have some good responses for the children if you don't have an answer for a particular question, ie., what a great question, let me think about that for a bit.... I think as teachers we always need those tools in our back pocket.
Hi Laura!
ReplyDeleteI loved reading this post! I was also nervous when the students were asking me questions about the rocks. I was telling them that their questions were great and to write them down so we could discuss them as a class later. My partner however, knows a lot about rocks and was answering every question they asked him. We probably should have talked about what we wanted to do before questions were being asked. We were definitely a lot less nervous for this lesson and I think with each new lesson we teach we will become more confident. Great post! :)