Throughout my 7 weeks of pre-internship at Jack Mackenzie School, I have challenged my comfort levels when deciding which subjects to plan and teach a lesson for. Science, math, and ELA are my three most feared subjects to teach.
Science and math were not my strongest subjects when I was in school and I was never excited or passionate about these subjects because I struggled in my understandings of concepts. I constantly lacked confidence in my ability to succeed in math or science and by high school I accepted that I needed to do enough to “just pass” the courses. My fears for teaching math and science now come from my lack of passion for the subjects and the pressure I feel to ensure that my students do not acquire the same distaste or struggle for these subjects as I had in school.
On the other hand, ELA was my favorite subject in school. I took Advanced Placement English all through high school and always enjoyed reading and writing. The fear I feel for teaching ELA comes from my belief that ELA is the most important school subject. English Language Arts sets students up for their future successes by teaching comprehension, phonemic awareness, reading strategies, proper writing knowledge, and so on. Especially in the early years like grade two, I feared that I did not have enough knowledge or understanding to appropriately teach ELA.
For my first two lessons I challenged myself by teaching science and I could not have been more thrilled with how my lessons went! In week two I taught a lesson about solids and liquids, specifically the non-Newtonian substance oobleck! Oobleck is made of corn starch and water and can be manipulated to be both a solid and a liquid, depending on the amount of force that is applied to it. I taught my students what non-Newtonian meant and then each student got their own plate of oobleck to explore! The grade twos LOVED experiencing the oobleck and did an amazing job of observing and understanding the concept of how oobleck is both a solid and a liquid. For samples of student work and to check out my blog post for this week’s lesson click here!
In week three I planned another science lesson, this time with a focus of exploring which natural objects sink or float. I taught this lesson on October 24th (Take Me Outside Day!) so I specifically planned to take my students outside to collect natural items from around the school yard. When we were outside, I talked to my students about the responsibility we have to treat the land and all the elements of nature with respect. I reminded students that we are on Treaty 4 territory and that the FNMI people shared their land with us long ago. When the FNMI people shared the land with us, we signed a treaty promise stating that we would care for and respect the land. I reminded my students that we only take objects that have fallen to the ground, unless there is a tree that has an abundance of berries, for example, then we may respectfully take one. My students were very considerate of the land around us and I could not have been more proud to take such a wonderful group on a fun adventure. Once back inside, the students worked in partners to test their objects in a container of water. Using their worksheets they first wrote down the name of their object, predicted whether they thought it would sink or float, and then wrote down what happened after testing the object! For samples of student work and to check out my blog for this week’s lesson click here!
Week five was my favorite lesson from the first half of pre-internship. I challenged myself by teaching a math lesson, even with math being my least favorite subject pre-internship is the time to do things that scare you! For this lesson I was asked to focus on representing numbers 0 to 100 using tally marks, base ten blocks, and ten frames. Knowing that my students already had previous knowledge in representing number helped with my confidence in engaging them in further exploration of the three specific manipulatives. My grade two class has six iPads for students to use and I thought this lesson would be a great opportunity to include technology in a resourceful way. I began by introducing the class to Jack Hartmann as we watched his video called “I can show numbers in so many ways!” which they absolutely loved! I then showed them an online resource for math manipulatives that I wanted to show everyone in the class how to use. For the activities, students were divided into four groups of 6-7 students. We set the classroom up into stations and each station had their own manipulative. The first station had base ten blocks, second station had ten frames and bingo chips, third station had the iPads, and the fourth station had individual whiteboards and markers. As groups stopped at each station I asked a student to pick a number from 1-100 out of a container. The student read out the number and each student had to represent the number using their manipulative. During and after the lesson I heard wonderful feedback coming from my students about how much they enjoyed the lesson! After this lesson I have more confidence in teaching math! Check out my blog for this week’s lesson here!
When tackling my first ELA lesson in week six I reminded my students about proper sentence structure and how to write a complete sentence. I then introduced the terms of subject and predicate and how to distinguish between both when reading a sentence. When planning the lesson, I was worried that I did not have enough content within the lesson to fill up the full 50 minute period. I also wanted to be sure to offer my students a variety of tasks within the lesson to encourage them to stay motivated and focused. By the end of the lesson I realized that my expectations were too high for one single lesson. The students had a difficult time keeping up with all the tasks I had explained to them. This lesson was a quality learning experience for myself in regard to appropriate lesson planning. I was so worried in the content I was anxious about teaching that I did not notice how much work I was asking my students to complete. I look forward to making changes to this lesson in the future and teaching it again! Check out student work and my blog for this week’s lesson here!
For my final week in the school this semester I wanted a second chance at planning an ELA lesson. This time I focused on a small group activity with word work during the classes daily 5 period! For this word work activity I wanted my students to explore the long a vowel sound and how the sound can be created using different spellings. As a group we first identified the difference between long and short A sounds. We then created a list together about all the long A words we could think of. Using a worksheet I created after getting my idea from an awesome teacher blog I found online, I asked my students to “Read it, write it, stamp it!” I had small containers on the table with long A words which each student was invited to pick from. Once picking a word I asked students to read the word out loud and then glue it on their paper. The students then had to write the word in pencil before being able to use the alphabet stamps I brought to spell the word in stamps. I asked my students to work individually on their own paper as I observed and discussed my students choices during the ten minutes allotted for each group. My students really enjoyed getting to use the stamps and I believe the activity increased their understanding of long A words! For samples of student work and to check out my blog post for this week’s lesson click here!
For quick access to my professional development plans for each week’s lesson click here!