Thanksgiving

Snowflake Bentley

The book that we have included in our lesson plan is called Snowflake Bentley. This book was incorporated into our lesson plan because it works perfectly with analyzing snowlflakes. It was interesting to find a book that correlated so nicely with the lesson. This book will be a great contribution to our lesson because it will show how students will be able to learn about the development of snowflakes. I recommend this book to others that are teaching about snowflakes. We thought it would be good to discuss winter weather with winter approaching so students know how to dress properly when out in the cold winter weather. The analyzing of snowflakes will also get them excited for more snow to fall so they will be able to show others there new trick about snowflakes.

Lesson Plan II

I am looking forward to the upcoming lesson plan that we will be presenting next week because I think that we have an interesting topic. When doing these lesson plans to our classmates, I love to see the feedback so I can tell if I am on the right track for developing a strong lesson plan that will be interactive and also something that students will learn from. I feel it is very helpful to have the evaluation sheets because it really lets you know what you can improve on. I don't feel offended if someone comments on something that I need to do differently; that is actually what I WANT to see so that I can quickly make improvements before I go into the teaching world! I hope that the rest of the class enjoys our lesson plan and provides us with good feedback so we can make any changes that need to be made!

Workday hooray!

With the extremely busy two weeks that we have had on our hands, it was extremely great to have a workday on Thursday! I was soo greatful of the understanding of Dr. E, I also felt the workday was much needed because there were a lot of us that had questions concerning the upcoming lesson plan. It was very nice to be able to get these questions resolved and get everybody on the same page. I feel that days like this are much needed at times and I was glad that Dr. E was understanding enough to allow us to have one. I am now more confident with the lesson plan that we are going to be presenting next Thursday.

5 E's

Learning about the concept of Constructivism and the 5 E's was very interesting and helpful because it broke down the different steps students go through when changing misconceptions and relating them to actual knowledge. The 5 E's: engage, explore, explain, elaborate, evaluate, all play a critical role in the quality of the students learning. It is imperative that students engage themselves in the material they are learning about and make connections between the past and present. It is also important that they explore and get directively involved and also explain what they recognized during this process. Explaining and elaborating on these ideas is also important when expanding on the concepts and strengthing those connections they are making. The final E, evaluation, is important for the teacher in order to determine if the student in comprehending and making process and learning. I will definitely take the 5 E into effect when I engage my students in learning new materials in my classroom.

Blasting off our bottlerockets!

Out of all of the lesson plans that we participated in the last couple of days, I found the Bottlerocket one to be my favorite. It was difficult to grasp the comlete process of putting the bottlerockets together because the lesson plan and activity were spilt, but I still found it to be very interesting. Although it was a little on the dangerous side if students were not careful, I found the correlating safety video to be very helpful and covered all of the materials in a very clear and understandable manner. We were lucky to have such nice weather that would allow us to participate in shooting off our rockets today. There were many fun explosions and everyone got involved and had a lot of fun! I will definitely remember this activity and maybe explore it with my future students!

Heat and Light sources

I was looking forward to presenting our lesson plan to the class! I liked how we had incorporated the two different sources and showed home some can be both a light and heat source. I also liked how we had a great attitude and although it was hard to incorporate a safe hands-on activity for first graders to do, i still feel we pulled it off. The safety video correlated well with our lesson and allowed students to participate in an activity outside of the classroom! I liked how they could relate this to an out of class experience. It worked well that we could present our lesson plan the day before Halloween! I had fun presenting this lesson plan but wish we would not have had to be so rushed in order to fully get through the material.

Science lesson plans

I have had a lot of fun taking part in the numerous lesson plans put on by my fellow classmates. There are a number of important aspects and ideas that I will take from these and incorporate into my classroom. They all addressed the safety issues very clearly and provided very useful and appropriate videos. I especially liked the homemade video by Brittanys group. Very clever and got the points accross very clearly. I also enjoyed making the different mixtures, especially the goop that would allow you to walk on water! That was amazing! I have had so much fun with these lesson plans and think it is a great idea to allow students to present the different lessons they have come up with because it gives us all better ideas to address in our future classrooms!