My First Science Lesson!

Last Wednesday, I gave my first official lesson to my clinical class of kindergarteners. I have to admit, I was nervous! Coming off of working with third graders last semester, I have been finding adjusting to kindergarten-aged students to be a big change. Even more nerve-racking was that my teacher asked me to do my lesson on rocks, soil, and water – rather dull subjects in my opinion. Regardless of my apprehension my lesson ending up going well and the students were engaged and interested the entire time.

After looking at the feedback sheet my clinical teacher filled out and thinking about our conversation we had after my lesson, I am able to pinpoint what I did well and what I could improve. My strongest part of my lesson was definitely the beginning. I had the students sit on the big rug and we made a web of everything they knew about rocks. I was shocked! They knew much more than I expected. This part of my lesson was strong because the kids were engaged and I made sure to remind them to “raise their hands” if they had an idea so everyone could hear them. Next, I had three different types of soil for the students to look at. This part went very well too and I could tell that the students were using their prior knowledge to thinking critically about the different types of soil. I then asked the students to “turn and talk” to their neighbor about a difference between the soils. After a minute I brought the students back together and shared some of what I heard the students talking about. My clinical teacher mentioned that this was a strong part of my lesson because I shared the children’s knowledge instead of just ignoring what they had spoken to their partners about. My teacher also mentioned that I did a good job with explaining directions and modeling what I expected of the students before I sent them back to their tables to work individually. After I had explained the directions I sent the students back to their seats and handed them each a rock and a sheet of paper to draw their rock and write some descriptive words about their rock. My last strength of my lesson was that I gave my students choices on how they could sort their rocks. The end of my lesson was that the students were divided into groups of two and each group had to come up with a way to sort the rocks I had given them. The students were eager to do this and they had tons of ideas on ways they could sort their rocks.

Although my lesson went well overall, there are certainly some improvements that I would make if I were doing this lesson again. One suggestion that my clinical teacher made was that I should be less tolerant with side conversations during the lesson. She said that a “gentle touch on the shoulder or back or saying the child’s name” can help to bring back focus. I think that this would be a good thing to do not only for this lesson but for all lessons that I give. Another suggestion that she made was to not be afraid to take the rocks away from students who were playing around with them. The students behaved well up until it was time to sort the rocks. As soon as they were in a group setting they got silly and started spinning and tapping the rocks on the table. This was something that I was not expecting! If I gave this lesson again, I would mention some rules about handling the rocks before I passed them out to students and I would warn them that if they do not follow the rules their rocks will be taken away. When the students got loud with the rocks I definitely found it more difficult to keep control of the class. Another thing I would change about this lesson is that I would make sure that the students that I grouped together for the sorting section of the lesson would be able to work well together. Because I have only been at my clinical setting for three weeks I do not know all of the dynamics between children in this classroom. Next time, I would be sure not to group certain students together who I know have a hard time working together or feed off of each other’s silliness. With these improvements, I think that this lesson would run more smoothly and the students would be able to take more from it.

Overall, for a lesson on rocks, soil, and water I thought the students were very engaged! I have learned, through talking with my clinical teacher, that the students rarely get to do science lessons. She said that the way they teach ideas about science to the students is usually just through books. I think this was some of the reason the students were so excited about my lesson. This lesson gave them an opportunity to think critically and to physically interact with objects. The students remained motivated throughout the lesson and I think that giving them the choice on how they wanted to sort their rocks kept the children engaged as well.

Another aspect of my lesson that I have reflected on is the organization of my lesson. Originally, I planned to look at the different types of soil after the students had done all of the activities with the rocks. When I initially emailed my lesson to my clinical teacher, she suggested that I move that part of the lesson to the beginning so that the students could practice describing an object with my guidance. Looking back I am so glad I made that change! I felt like students were prepared to work independently when the time came because my lesson flowed well. I made sure to show them how to describe something, then we practiced together, then I showed them my example, and then they were asked to do it independently. I think the organization of this lesson set the students up for success. They all seemed to understand what was expected of them and I saw a lot of good work throughout the lesson that let me know that students understood what they were learning. Overall, I thought the lesson went well and I am excited to apply my knowledge from giving this lesson to the next lesson I present to this class.