Last Lesson!

I can hardly believe it, but this week we taught our last butterfly lesson to the second graders! Alisha and I spent a long time thinking of what we could do for our last lesson to wrap everything up. We decided to relate the life cycle of the butterfly to life cycles of other animals, to show the class that every living thing has a life cycle.

Our two focus points for this week were assessment and differentiating instruction. These are two things that I feel like we have struggled with a little bit throughout the semester- partly because we only drop in once a week and it can be hard to assess each student and differentiate well to meet each student's needs with such limited contact. But we did our best.

This week we assessed the student's work when they completed a human life cycle worksheet (to see if they completed it correctly) and whether or not the students put labels in the right part of our three-circle Venn diagram. In retrospect, it probably would have been a good idea to assess some of the class discussions we had too. To differentiate instruction, we tried to make sure we checked in with students who needed extra help getting going. We also had extension activities ready for students who finished early.

At the very end of our lesson we presented each student with a certificate, and they gave us each cards they wrote and drew themselves! It was really evident that they put a lot of work into the cards, and they wrote some really sweet notes to us. I will miss seeing these enthusiastic kids every Monday, but Alisha and I did get invited to an ice cream party on the last day of school... how can we turn that down? One girl came up to me at the very end and said "Someday I want to be a teacher and come back to this classroom and teach about butterflies!" What a great compliment!!

Time is Flying

This week we taught our next to last lesson. It's hard to believe that we are almost done! The butterflies have been set free, which presented new lesson planning challenges. On one hand, Alisha and I didn't have to worry about which phase the butterflies would be in when we walked through the door. On the other hand, observing the butterflies and discussing what changes were happening has been a major part of our lessons for the last few weeks. This week we decided to put it all together and talk about the full butterfly life cycle.

Our goal this week was to incorporate a technology or engineering component to our lesson. This was somewhat challenging for us. Alisha and I thought about ways to use engineering in our lesson, but we didn't want to do it at the expense of the other content that we thought was really important for our unit. We ended up having the kids construct paper plate models of a butterfly life cycle using pasta, paper leaves, and twigs. This activity was very hands on and involved scissors and glue, which kind of ties in to an engineering framework we found for the lower elementary grades. The kids seemed to enjoy this project and hopefully the pasta shapes will help them to remember the stages of the butterfly life cycle for years to come!

After teaching our lesson, our graduate class talked about the importance of teaching technology and engineering to our future students. The kids take the science standardized tests in fifth grade and technology and engineering make up 25% of the test. This is a little daunting. In most of the schools I have visited, there is such a heavy focus on literacy and math that most science is taught through ELA. Not every school sets aside time every day, or even every week, for science. Now that I see how important it is though, I will try to be creative and work technology and engineering into my classroom throughout the year and within different subject areas.

Lesson 5... Butterflies!

This week Alisha and I planned to teach a lesson about adult butterflies, so we were really hoping that we would walk into the classroom and see lots of butterflies flying around their cages. Luckily, most of our butterflies emerged Monday morning before our class! The timing was perfect- our students were able to observe the butterflies up close for the first time during our science lesson.

Our two main focus points for this lesson were writing in science and the use of technology. These are topics that we have been including in many of our lessons, so it wasn't hard to incorporate them this week.

Our students have been keeping an observation journal for the last few weeks. Each class, they observed the caterpillar and then recorded their observations in writing and drawings. This week we changed the focus a little bit. We asked students to write about where they think their butterflies will go after they are released. The students wrote some really good ideas down. Some talked about how they think their butterflies will go find mallow leaves to lay their eggs on. Others mentioned migration. These ideas are going to help lead into our next two lessons on life cycle and migration.

The second focus was using technology. Alisha and I have been using the classroom overhead projector to show diagrams of caterpillars and butterflies. We give students their own handouts to have at their desks, but it is nice to have the larger image to refer to. Next week we plan on using the teacher's projector to watch a video. Presenting things in multiple ways definitely helps the students. Some need to see the larger images and just listen as we talk about the topic. Others need the page right in front of them to see it up close. By using both, hopefully we are reaching more students than we would with just one or the other.

Next week, the butterflies will be gone. I think the kids will miss having them in the classroom, but we've been lucky to have such a hands-on and interactive unit!

... and this is why science is awesome

Going into this week's lesson I was feeling a little nervous about how things would go. In my first blog post, I admitted that I am a total planner. I like to know what is coming up so I can be prepared. Working with live insects in our science lessons has been challenging for me because we have to be totally flexible and come up with contingency plans for our lessons. When it's a full week between science classes, it's hard to say exactly what state we'll find our little caterpillar friends in!

This week, the caterpillars had almost all entered the chrysalis stage. At the very end of class, I walked around the room holding a chrysalis so students could get a close look. As I sat with one group of girls looking at the chrysalis, it hit me... just a day or two ago, this was a caterpillar crawling around and eating everything it could find. Now it's a little case of black and shiny gold, and in just a few more days, it's going to be a butterfly. That's AMAZING! The girls and I were all awe struck thinking about the transformation the insect had already gone through. Moments like that are why teaching science is awesome. It's worth working through uncertainty with unfamiliar materials to be able to experience moments like this one.

So, with that said, this week we focused on a few different aspects of teaching science: content vocabulary, the flow of the lesson, and addressing science misconceptions. With science, there is often new vocabulary. In our lesson this week, the students made some observations of the caterpillar cups and asked questions about what they saw. They actually asked questions that lead right to our vocabulary words. Alisha and I were able to give the students words like "exoskeleton," "molting," and "chrysalis" as labels for concepts they had already noticed but weren't sure of the scientific term for.

Managing the flow of the lesson involved some serious thought during our planning time as well as some flexibility to improvise and adjust as we were actually teaching. Alisha and I spend a lot of time deciding what order do teach our lesson in while we are planning. We talk about what can transition students logically from one activity to the next. However, as carefully as we plan, we don't always stick to the exact times we write in our lesson plan. We are constantly reassessing as we teach and try to move the lesson along in increments that make sense for the class rather than following our lesson plan exactly.

Finally, the science misconception. Last week, we overheard some students talking about how the caterpillars were spinning cocoons out of their silk. Actually, Vanessa cardui caterpillars become a chrysalis after their final molt. They do not spin a cocoon. We decided that this would be an important misconception to address. It also tied in nicely to our lesson on the chrysalis stage. I think the students understood our explanation. They asked us some really great questions about why the caterpillars produce silk at all that made me feel confident that they absorbed the new information.

All in all, a great week!

The Caterpillars Are Here!

This week the students finally got to meet their new classroom visitors- the caterpillars! Their arrival was delayed due to the freak snow storm that closed schools for most of the week, but the caterpillars all made it through without harm and the kids were very excited to see them. Before we could even get started with our lesson, some of the students started asking if we could come for an extra week to make up for the day we missed. It made me feel great that they are so excited about science and enjoy it so much that they want us to come back! Even better, when Alisha and I started reviewing what we did two or three weeks ago, a lot of the students were able to answer our questions. I guess they are learning some science!

This week we focused on classroom management, science process skills, and the closing of the lesson. Classroom management is something that I think will take some time to get comfortable with. The students in our class are really good and tend to behave very well. Sometimes they get really excited and want to share more with each other when we need their attention back, and that's where I think I need to work a little bit on developing confidence in gaining their attention. The classroom teacher has some cues like "One, two, three, eyes on me!" or the clapping pattern that work well. Classroom management is another area where having a coteacher is great- Alisha and I can both walk around the room to answer questions and check in with groups, so no one has to wait too long and lose focus.

The science process skill we focused on this week was observation. We have worked on this before with the class, but today was the first day they got their caterpillars so we thought it was important for them to get a good look at them. The students used hand lenses to get a close up view of the caterpillars, and they all recorded their observations through writing and drawing. A lot of students labeled their pictures with the parts of the caterpillars that they could see, which shows that they were making some good observations.

With so much observing and discussion going on, it seems like the class flies by. Alisha and I try to set aside the last five to ten minutes for a class discussion. Each day the students write an answer to the key question as a kind of "exit slip" for the day. Having the students write down answers helps bring them back around to our focus question. We give as many students time to share as we can, and help bridge together their ideas to make sure we've really answered the key question.

All in all, I think this week's lesson was successful. The students were happy to adopt the caterpillars into their classroom, and hopefully the caterpillars will thrive in their new home.

Week 2

This week Alisha and I taught our second science lesson. I definitely felt better prepared and less nervous than week one. Although our lesson this week wasn't as interactive as the Mystery Bag, it was still hands on and I think the class had a good time.

One of our focuses this week was starting the lesson off with a strong hook to engage the students. We focused on the fact that the caterpillars will be arriving next week, and because Alisha and I won't be there every day, we will need the students to be good observers. This made the lesson more relevant to them, because soon they will be hosting the caterpillars in their classroom. Hopefully this motivated them to learn to use the hand lens properly and to think about the different parts of the caterpillar. It definitely opened the door to a lot of stories and ideas about caterpillars, which was great.

Another important part of teaching is managing materials. A lot of this happened before we even got to the classroom. Last week, Alisha and I planned exactly what we would need and made sure we had plenty of supplies for everyone. When we got into the classroom we had a few minutes to lay everything out on a table in the order in which we would need them. We never had to dig around to find what we needed, so we didn't have to waste any class time. It was nice to have two of us coteaching the lesson so we could hand out materials more quickly and keep the lesson moving.

Finally, we really thought about how our lesson related to the state science frameworks. The frameworks are a great resource for lesson planning, because they guide you to what students should be learning at each grade level. Another reason it is important to keep the frameworks in mind is because there are so many lesson plans available online or through educational companies. It might be tempting to just follow along with the plan as it is. However, if the lesson doesn't fit with the frameworks, it might not be the best use of class time. It may be possible to just alter lessons a little bit to make them fit with the frameworks better.

All in all, I think we had a good week two! Next week we'll introduce the caterpillars to the class... just in time for Halloween. Scary!

What's in the bag? A fun science lesson!

Yesterday was our first science lesson with the second graders. Although I was very nervous going in, I had a lot of fun and I can't wait to go back next time!

Alisha and I carefully planned our Mystery Bag lesson well ahead of time and made sure we had all of our materials and handouts ready to go. We checked with the classroom teacher to get her input and made some minor but important changes based on her feedback. We thought about what we wanted to say and who would lead different parts of the lesson, so we never had a moment where we were standing in front of the class with blank looks on our faces. I think we were able to adjust our plans as the lesson went on too, adding a few minutes here or cutting something a little short there to keep things flowing. The result was- the kids loved it! Their screaming was my biggest clue. They could barely contain themselves when they finally got to open the bag and see what was inside. Although the noise level might have been more playground appropriate than classroom appropriate, everything they were chattering about was directly related to their observations and the lesson.

One of our major focuses was how to make observations safely. We couldn't have asked for better kids. It felt a little bit like someone planted some little science geniuses in our class. For every sense, they had serious input about what might be unsafe. They brought up ideas like "if you smell something it might be poisonous and hurt your nose," and "an experiment might have an explosion and then you would never be able to hear ever again." I tried to acknowledge their input while reassuring them that we would not be doing anything that would permanently damage them in any way. One part of the feedback that we got on our lesson was that although the kids all practiced the wafting technique, some of them went ahead and took a big smell of the bag without wafting. We will definitely make sure to keep reminding them of safety throughout the unit.

Finally, I know this lesson wouldn't have been as fun or successful without my coteacher Alisha, aka the other Ms S. Working together we came up with a plan that I wouldn't have been able to pull off on my own. It was really nice to know someone had my back in case I couldn't come up with a word or lost my train of thought. Alisha took on the lesson intro which I am very grateful for, because it gave me a few minutes to get settled before jumping in. For our first experience working with a full class of second graders, it's nice to have two sets of eyes and two people to circulate and answer questions and check in with different groups. I'm glad to have Alisha for a partner!

Next week we'll start talking about caterpillars with the class. Hopefully the idea of having some long-term classroom guests will keep the kids excited about what's coming up next!