Planting Cucumbers

Yesterday was our fifth science lesson, and I think we are getting so much better every single week which is a real morale booster!  This week, we really put everything together that we had been struggling with over the course of the last four weeks, and the smoothness of today's lesson showed that we had done this before.  There was a lot of content information that we had to teach in our introduction, so I was a little worried that the students would loose focus, but they surprisingly stayed on task very well.  I think it was helpful that we split the content information up into three distinct parts, and there was just enough transition in between each part to allow the students to regain their focus and keep their attention on the lesson.  Even something as simple as switching who is speaking or asking a question can allow the students more time to focus before loosing them.  It definitely helped that we had a question posed at the end of each section, which allowed the students a little thinking time and just enough transition to keep their attention focused on soil.

We began a long-term project planting cucumbers in different soil samples to see which type of soil will produce the healthiest plants.  We discussed what a healthy plant looks like, and that plants need water and minerals (just like we need food and water) in order to survive, and that the quality and quantity of soil has a tremendous effect on how much "food" the plants can get.  We watched a BrainPopJr. video on soil at the rug (which the students thought was fun), and then we began handing out the materials and the different samples of soil to each group. Students were paired up with the person sitting next to them, and each pair had two soil samples- one with local soil, and the second with either sand, clay, or humus depending on which group we assigned them to.  This way, everyone will have at least one healthy plant (the local soil), and they will be able to use the knowledge that they have gained over the last four weeks to determine why the sand and clay are not going to produce the healthiest plants (which they made predictions about today in their science journals).

I thought we did a great job incorporating technology into this week's lesson.  We had the students sit at the reading rug to watch the BrainPop video on my laptop, and after the students had drawn their initial observations of the plants and had written a description of what the samples looked like, we used the document camera to show some exemplary student work (which the students got really excited about!).  I think that by using the doc cam, we were able to get the students to work harder on their observations because they wanted to show the class their hard work, and it was a good way to use a little friendly competition in order to get the students to focus on doing their best work. 

We focused today's assessment on content writing, and we had the students write their predictions in their science journals as to which sample of soil they believe will produce the healthiest plant.  Alyssa and I walked around the classroom while the students were writing in their science journals to make sure they were staying on task, and then after the students planted their seeds, we handed out two worksheets in which they had to write their initial observations of each sample after the first day.  I think that by having the students write about what they are learning allows them to think through what they really want to say, and it gives them something to refer back to in a few weeks when the plants are grown so that they can see how much they have learned.  I'm glad that today's lesson went so smoothly, and it definitely gave me a boost of confidence seeing that the content information that we had to teach before planting the seeds was pretty complicated.  I thought it might have been a little more than they could handle, but the students did a great job listening and I thought we did a great job teaching the information.

Mrs. K Returns

    This week's lesson went much better than last week, and it was a world of difference having Mrs. K back in the classroom.  The students have been back in school after their mini-vacation for over a week now, and they were much more focused and well-behaved all around.  One of our students tends to be distracted more easily than the rest of the class (Alyssa- you know who I‘m talking about J), but as soon as he began to get a little overwhelmed with excitement, Mrs. K whispered something in his ear and he settled down immediately.  Our lesson this week was based on a lesson that they had already done with Mrs. K, and they were able to observe the changes that have occurred in their mixtures of sand and water, clay and water, and humus and water since they first observed them the lesson before.  The students had pictures drawn of what they had observed the first time they looked at these mixtures (which were colored in and labeled) that they could use as a reference in order to note the changes that have occurred over time.  We asked the students to make predictions based on their prior observations before we allowed them to observe the mixtures this week, and we used the think-pair-share exercise so that the students could discuss their predictions with their partners and then share their thoughts with the rest of the class.  This was a good way of keeping the volume down, and making sure they were staying on task, because it is difficult to monitor the discussions even when they are in groups of four or five (which is how their desks are set up).
    We focused on content vocabulary this week, making sure that our students knew the terms that we were using as part of our lesson, and clarifying any potentially difficult vocabulary that surfaced during our discussion of what the students had predicted and observed.  We also focused on misconceptions that the students had about soil, and when we were finished with our observations of the mixtures after allowing them to settle since their last lesson, we handed out a worksheet that asked questions about the common misconceptions that people have about soil.  We gave the students a few minutes to answer all of the questions, and when they were ready, we discussed the misconceptions as a class and had the students explain how and why they know that those misconceptions are not true.  It was nice to see that the students knew the answers to a lot of the misconceptions because we had discussed them in class over the past few weeks, and we could tell that they were learning what we were teaching them which was a relief. 
    The flow of our class was much better this week than it was during last week’s lesson, and we were able to stay on task and have a meaningful discussion because the students were much more well behaved, and we had a good plan for who was going to teach the different parts of the lesson at what time and who was going to help clarify what was being taught and fix any misunderstandings the students had (as well as focus on classroom management), which we divided evenly among the two of us.  I am glad that Alyssa and I were able to bounce back after last week’s belated Halloween lesson, and it made us feel a lot more confident about our ability as teachers to work on our mistakes and use them constructively as a guide for what we need to focus on for our future lessons.

Belated Halloween Lesson

This belated Halloween lesson was straight out of a horror movie!  The students were just coming back from a week off from school, and to make matters worse, their teacher was at professional development for the day, so we were pretty much over our heads to begin with.  The lesson Alyssa and I had planned involved making an edible soil profile, showing the three layers of soil and their components with a few different types of cereal and candy.  The lesson plan seemed great on paper, but we misjudged how much of an impact the classroom teacher had on her students' behavior, so as soon as candy was thrown into the mix their little minds couldn't handle the excitement!  We were more successful with getting the students to wash their hands in an orderly fashion than we had been in our two previous lessons, but we had a hard time with classroom management due to all of the excitement.  I also think that their level of comfort with us now that they have gotten to know us a bit better may have played a part in the difficult time we had keeping them under control, but I think their teachers absence was a major factor in their classroom behavior. 

I thought overall we did a pretty good job regaining our composure after the first wave of madness considering our odds, but I was really bummed while the lesson was going on because I knew it wasn't going the way we had planned it.  Our new goal was simply to make it work however we possibly could, so we focused almost primarily on keeping the class under control while they ate so that we could at least end the lesson with a strong conclusion and make any connections that they had missed due to all of the excitement.  One very important thing that I learned as a result of this lesson was to always have a backup plan or an extension activity for the students to do in case the lesson falls apart or does not go as planned for one reason or another.  If the lesson ends up taking much less time than you had originally expected for whatever reason, you should always have something else planned that you can turn to if your in a pickle.  If you need to call off the entire activity, which certainly crossed my mind a few times during this lesson, then my advice would be that you should not hesitate to do so because some days are better than others, and you could always try again on another day.

I was really stressed out during and shortly after the lesson, but I am definitely glad that I had this not-so-pleasant experience now that it is in the past.  I think this experience gave me the understanding that our lessons are not always going to go as smoothly as we had planned them, which they had so far before today, so it is a good learning experience to see that these things do happen and that it is not the end of the world.  I am excited to get back into the classroom next week, and I think after our next lesson is over, we will be much more confident with our ability to bounce back and leave this experience in our rear view.