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.