October 25 - 29, 2010
This week has been filled with me teaching lessons! It started on Monday with Language Arts. I taught Text-to-World, a difficult connection for a 10-year-old to make. The lesson started off well, I reviewed Self-to-Text and Text-to-Text, and then moved on to begin explaining World-to-Text. I then read Casey at the Bat, and modeled how to write a Text-to-World using a graphic organizer on the overhead. I read a written summary of the poem (written by REM), and then modeled how to make the connection to something in the world. The connection made was to the Red Sox 2004 win over the Yankees, but from the perspective of a Yankee's fan. The kids loved it! REM jumped in to further illustrate how hard this connection was for students to make, and to request a teacher conference if they needed more help.
On Tuesday, I started part one of the two part lesson on Magnets in science. This was sooo fun! Nod was there to chime in when necessary, and didn't have to except to answer a question or two. The other student intern, Eagle from here on out, and I planned the lesson together. We discussed the worksheet that was already made for this lesson, and decided it was a lot of information that wouldn't keep the kids engaged. We reconstructed the class worksheet to make it more kid-friendly. These modifications, which Eagle made, were great accommodations for my class! The first day, we began with a PowerPoint explaining the history of magnets. It then went on to explain the poles of magnets, the Earth's poles, and how magnets attract and repel each other. I then invited the class to participate in some magnet demonstrations. First I showed them how to make a magnet repel and attract (using same poles and opposite poles) and then had a student "chase" a magnet on the overhead, trying to put the two together (using same poles). Together, we filled in a worksheet, and Nod ended the lesson with a challenge/review of the electricity unit so far.
Day two of magnets started with a challenge review. I then invited the entire class to sit up front and watch a BrainPop. This is a great website that explains educational topics in kid-friendly animation. The clip we showed was really cute, and the kids loved it. The even begged to watch it again! I guess normally they do watch them twice, but because I wanted them to experiment, we didn't have time. I then showed the class what they would be doing for their magnet experiments and sent them back to their sheets to make predictions before experimenting. I then went over the predictions on the overhead. Before we handed out the materials, SPEM went over the rules of sharing and I friendly reminded them if I saw any materials in the air not attached to their hands, they had "special work" to do (Dividing and conquering paragraphs about magnets).
The students then worked together at their table teams to see what would be attracted to the magnet. They were given a stick, steal wool, a utensil, paperclip, a colored disk (which turned out to have a wire wrapped around the edge), paper, tin foil, and a nail. We then went over what attracted and what repelled as I recorded it on the overhead. The class really seemed to enjoy this experiment, and they did everything wonderfully! :)
On Thursday, I taught mental math - multiplication and division with zeros. While I did great with the steps and process of solving for the facts and then tacking on zeros or crossing them off "one for one"...but then REM had to step in to explain what they were really doing with place holders and so forth...so I basically forgot the biggest part of the lesson...
Friday was our Halloween Parade...I dressed in my show clothes as an Equestrian. We paraded to the other classrooms and then went outside for a whole grade photo (students only) and then went for recess. The only thing academic today was making science flash cards for the Electricity Unit test next week. We also had our Vision Party today, and the class watched Horton Hears a Who. Movies on the Smart Board are awesome! :)
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