Long, but Good Day

The length of this day includes extracurricular activities as well. I was only at the elementary school til 5.

     I had a lot of fun and learned a lot of things during my lead teaching periods today. To start, I made my own story to present during the mini-lesson for reading today. The kids loved the story and were able to identify the character’s conflict and resolution, as well as motives, with great accuracy. I think if you have the creativity to make a story that reflects a literary component you are teaching, and you can make the story interesting, it is a great mini-lesson tool. However, I will always want to keep authentic texts involved.

Now, on to science. Science was my favorite part of the day. I learned that deviation from the plans can be such a wonderful thing when appropriate. This past Saturday, I went to the botanical gardens and found a plant I had never seen before. So, the teacher in me said, steal this one and that one over there so you can show it to your students since we are learning about classifying plants. So, I brought in the two examples, and we did some inquiry thinking for our activation. Well, the activation turned into a 30 minute work period where they made their own inferences on paper, and we discussed them as a class, supporting and refuting with evidence. This was the first time this year that the kids have gotten to do any real inquiry based exploration in science, and I am really happy that I got to make it happen because the kids had fun and learned a lot about what it means to really consider something. They did a great job, and some of them had fantastic, accurate inferences with support.

     Social studies today was a lesson in time and clear directions. The two being related in this instance. The students were supposed to rewrite the Missouri Compromise of the Compromise of 1850 in their own words, as if they were part of congress in that time. Apparently my directions were not very clear, and looking back, I can see that. My mentor said that he understood what I was asking of them, but it probably needed to be explained in a little more detail for them. I will say that the unclear directions led to us getting one-on-one time with just about every student, thus getting a good opportunity to check for their understanding of the content, and help them understand anything they did not about the compromises. I’m quite the glass half full type person though. Needless to say, the social studies lesson ended unfinished today, but tomorrow is a new day!