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.

Literacy In My Clinical Classroom

This week marks my third time going to my clinical classroom this semester. My classroom is made up of 21 kindergarteners and one teacher. Looking back at what I have seen so far, I am noticing that most of the time in the classroom is spent on literacy instruction and assessment. The first time I saw literacy instruction take place was during a morning meeting where the teacher did some Hagerty assessments with the children. She had made flashcards of sight words that she had the class answer as a whole.

Another time where I have seen literacy in this classroom is before lunch when the teacher or I read a book aloud to the kids. The book always ties in with something that the kids are learning about that day. I feel like my teacher does a really good job with asking the kids questions about the text and about how the characters may feel. The way that she interacts with the children during the read aloud certainly goes along with what I learned in one of my classes, Literacy 273, last semester. Our professor taught us how important it is to engage the kids during read alouds and to ask them questions throughout it to get them thinking about the characters, storyline, and choices that the author made. The kids really love this time of the day and they are always eager to answer questions about the story.

After lunch, my teacher has the children lie down on towels for a rest and the kids get to listen to a couple short books on tape. She allows a different student to pick the books everyday. I think that this is great because it gets the kids excited that they will get to choose a story that they really like. It also helps to keep the kids calm and quiet during this rest time. There is also a time of the day where my teacher does literacy centers. There is a center where the kids listen to a book on tape, a center where they read quietly, a center where they work in a small group with the teacher, and a center where a parent helper does an activity with the students. This worked so well! The kids rotate two times and then go to the centers they miss the next day. Doing centers like this definitely goes along with what I have learned in classes at ISU because the kids do not work on any one thing for too long and also they get to work on literacy in a variety of ways.

The only times I have seen my teacher do actual assessments of the students literacy is during one of these small group lessons that she gave. She had copies of a short book made for each child. The children were learning about the letter “J” so the book was called “See Jack Jump”. The kids had to write in the words “Jack” and “jump” at certain parts of the book, they had to circle the sight word “with” and they had to add in periods in the appropriate places. After they had all finished this, she had the kids read the book as a group, silently, and then to two partners. This assessment goes along perfectly with what I have learned throughout my classes because she teaches the lesson and then allows the students to practice independently and with others.

After these first few times at my clinical setting I am eager to see how consistent my teacher is with all of these literacy activities and assessments. I feel like there is so much focus on literacy and math that it makes me wonder if she teaches science or social studies lessons very often. I am hoping to see more of these other subjects and more hands-on activities in the future!

Something that I would add in if this was my classroom would be some sort of visual chart/display, like the one above, that shows what centers each student should be at each day. This would help to eliminate any confusion about where students should be and it would make the kids more responsible for knowing what they should be doing.

About Me and Semester Goals

Hello,

My name is Eva Ticknor and I am a senior Early Childhood Education major at Illinois State University. I grew up in Crystal Lake Illinois and decided to attend ISU because I knew it had a well-respected College of Education. Initially, I thought that I wanted to teach preschool or kindergarten-aged children. But throughout my clinical and personal experiences, I have come to realize that I enjoy working with second and third graders. This is my last semester at ISU before student teaching and I am looking forward to learning all that I can before I leave! This blog will follow my thoughts about this semester as I participate in my clinical setting of a kindergarten classroom.

As I am in my clinical setting this semester there are four goals I have set for myself to achieve by the end of the semester. My first goal is to improve on building professional relationships in my clinical setting. Last semester, I felt as though my cooperating clinical teacher and I did not have much of a connection. I want to get to know my cooperating teacher better this semester so that I can feel more comfortable talking with her about her students, her coworkers, and teaching in general. I know how important it is to have an open path of communication with coworkers and I hope to begin practicing forming relationships like this by working on my relationship with my cooperating teacher. 

Another goal that I have for this semester is to become more comfortable with teaching science and social studies to children.  I feel like I have had plenty of opportunities to teach reading and writing lessons but I have not had much experience with these other subjects. I know that through the classes I am taking this semester I will learn strategies for teaching science and social studies in fun and effective ways. 

The third goal I have made for myself is that I want to integrate relevant technology into my lessons. Last semester I worked on becoming more comfortable with using Smart boards and now I want to continue to expand my knowledge. There are so many websites and resources for teachers to incorporate into their lessons in order to make them more engaging, visually stimulating, and interactive for students.  I want to explore some of these resources this semester and make sure that my lessons are fun and involve relevant technology in an effective way. 

My last goal for this semester is to work on my classroom management skills. Classroom management is something that I find to be tricky and somewhat uncomfortable at times. I work in a school over the summer, and I find that I have an easier time with classroom management when I personally know the students. I think that this is some of the reason why I find it difficult in a clinical setting. Some things that I plan on doing in order to improve my classroom management skills are that I am going to make sure to tell student my expectations, have an attention grabber to use throughout my lessons, and make my activities engaging.

Here is a quote that I love and reminds me how important it is to make learning 

fun and interactive for kids!