Science Talks

After much class discussion on and reading about Science Talks, today was my big day :)
I spent some time preparing a list of questions regarding severe weather topics so that I could get a more accurate picture of where my students were in terms of their prior knowledge. I can then use this information to make my severe weather science lesson the most appropriate for my students, because I will begin with what they already know and build from their personal experiences.
When my CT initially told me that I could teach a science lesson on severe weather I was disappointed. I didn't really see the value of teaching students about severe weather protocol because my parents had taught me what to do at home and my teachers had shown me what to do at school during severe weather. Much to my surprise though I quickly learned during my science talk that this kind of lesson is almost crucial for this particular group of students. It was made very clear to me that the students I will be teaching this lesson to don't have the kinds of prior knowledge that I did at their age. Some of this can be attributed to the fact that I had a stay-at-home mom until I went to Kindergarten and I was very prepared for school. I also grew up on a farm and knew the significance of severe weather, especially for our animals' safety.
One of the most important realizations that I came to during my science talk seems obvious, however I don't think I fully recognized it until it stared me in the eye. We all have different life experiences and learning opporunities that build our foundation of knowledge.
Almost all of these students come from a very different background than myself and I cannot assume that any of them have had any specific real-life experiences to learn from. In this specific situation, I assumed that all students would be able to relate to their experiences from last night with the severe weather that swept through the Lansing area. However, as I began to ask questions like "Who had to seek shelter in their basements last night" only about 3/4 of the class raised their hands. One student told me that he saw something on the TV that showed a picture of a storm, but his mother didn't make him turn the cartoons off.
Then I began to think about just how much our backgrounds allow us to build on the real-life applications that teachers bring into the classroom. I had the assumption that this was a great example that all the students would be able to relate to, but I was wrong.
So, where do I go from here?
The information that I was able to gather from the students today has given me much more incite about the necessity of the lesson that I will be teaching in a few weeks. Now that I understand how important it is I almost feel as if I have more responsibility. For some of these students, this will be the first time that they've heard about when to seek shelter during severe weather and I only have this one shot to convey the significance of this topic to them. I have 40 minutes to teach this lesson, and I know that I will only have 10 minutes of full attention from some students. I have to make this the best that I can.

A New Look @ Substitutes

My CT was absent today as well, however, I was immediately relieved to walk into the classroom and see a woman with a Pleasant View Staff lanyard on. All of the students were sitting on the rug, finishing up a writing lesson and the substitute had total control over the classroom; unlike the substitute from 2 weeks ago.
Even though I enjoy my CT, I was really glad to step into this situation today because I got a chance to actually sit back and take some notes about individual students and the classroom as a whole. I feel like every other week that I come I immediately jump right in wherever I’m needed; not because my CT doesn’t have full control, but just because I more or less want to impress her. However, today I sat down at the round table and watched as students worked on their journals. One of the boys who knew it was his publishing day came up and asked if I was going to publish his tables stories again, like last time my CT wasn’t here, but I was relieved when Mrs. R. already knew which table was supposed to publish today and she took care of it.
We went out for recess for about 3 minutes before it started raining and I figured that the students would be disappointed that they didn’t get to play that much. But, much to my surprise, I didn’t hear one student say a word about having to go in early. Surely if they didn’t complain than they’d act up, right? Wrong. They were totally fine without that 20 minutes of free time and physical exercise. When we came back inside the students went straight to the rug and sat down, waiting patiently for their math lesson. But Mrs. R. sent them back to their seats. This confused a few students as they couldn’t understand why they had to sit at their tables after recess, because they always go to the rug. The students KNOW what they are supposed to do. My CT has done a great job of implementing a daily routine that the kids have absorbed.
I guess this can be a lesson learned for the future...building substitutes really have the advantage of knowing a lot of students by name already as well as the layout of the building. Our route to get outside for recess, for example, goes all throughout the building and I know that if I was substituting in this classroom as my first time in this building, I would be TOTALLY lost! Especailly because this building has the old part and the new part, including all the renovations and new sections, such as the auditorium and cafetorium (which I didn't even know was a word until today :) ).

The planning begins...

So, now that I know where my CT is going with both science and social studies for the next few months, it's time to figure out what I'm going to be teaching in November.
Science: We just began this unit on Tree Homes last week, but the unit will be completed by the end of October. The next science unit will be on Weather. When I asked for a copy of the curriculum my CT is using I was very surprised when she told me that they were instructed to get rid of their MI Curriculum Frameworks because a new verison was being drafted. However, because this new version isn't approved yet, my CT currently has NO copy of the curriculum she is teaching these students. Her plans for teaching are the same as they were last year, as the teachers in this building have been instructed to carry on until the new curriculum is approved. In the mean time, she's just going to keep doing what she's always done...So what if I was a first year teacher and my principle told me to do this...I think I might freak out a little bit!
All I know if that I'm covering a small section of weather safety, including what to do during severe weather. I know that for my science talk I'm going talk to some students about what they have done in the past when there has been some kind of servere weather. Other than that, I don't really know how I want to go about teaching this lesson. My CT did suggest to me that I try to bring in a local weather person to talk to the students about severe weather...but I almost feel as if that's something she'd like me to do rather than leaving me the freedom to come up with something from my own line of creativity.
Social Studies: Personal history and timelines are a bulk of the curriculum for Kindergarteners so that's what I'm teaching on. I really want to go with this "When I Grow Up" theme and have the students make puppets of themselves as adults-but I have to work out the logistics of that first...
Being able to identify past, present, and future is also a major focus of this unit and therefore will be incorporated into my lesson in some manner, so, I think that I will have the students make a timeline of their lives (birth, now, as adults...) to place significant events in chronological order. This lesson is going to be really easy to base off of benchmarks, however I'm not so sure about the science lesson because there is only one benchmark about weather safety and it only includes key concepts like thunder, lightning, watch, and warning.
Let the planning begin!!!

Substitutes

The stereotypical substitute teacher to me is an old woman, retired from teaching herself, who isn’t “up-to-beat” with the ways kids act nowadays. Coming from a small, rural school setting, these are the only substitutes I ever remember having; expect for the one 20-something guy we had one time in high school for computer class who got fired, on the spot, for looking at inappropriate Internet materials. Other than that, this is really my only experience with substitutes; until today.
As I was walking to my CT’s classroom I thought it was strange that there was so much noise bursting out the door. As I got closer, I realized there were several different familiar voices crying. My mind immediately began racing; what is going on in there? Why are so many kids crying? Is there a fight going on? I honestly didn’t know what to think. Then I walked in and saw a substitute teacher frantically trying to get 24 students to write in their daily journals without the “go-stamp”. Each day when I arrive, the students are working in their daily journals and they have very specific instructions to not start drawing their picture until they have the “go-stamp” which is a dated stamp on the next piece of clean paper in their journals. They cannot start until they have their “go-stamp” because their teacher is checking to make sure that they are writing their entries in order and not leaving blank pages in between their daily stories. It’s a system that they have been using since school started and judging by the frustration level of the students who literally couldn’t write without it, it’s something they’ve become depended on and they know the rule very well.
I immediately stepped in and got most of the kids settled down, especially the ones who were crying. I went around, table by table, and explained that I was so proud of them for knowing what they were supposed to do and I was going to tell my CT what good students she has, but I also told them that just for today we were going to bend the rules and write without a stamp. I also made this sound like something exciting because I told them all that their teacher was going to be so proud of them for knowing what to do, even when she is not there.
With Kindergartener’s, it’s all about delivery! They will believe almost whatever you tell them, and chances are, they’ll remember what you say too. It’s so important not to “brush” them off just because they are so little. What you tell your students can have a bigger impact on them than you’ll ever think.
Back to the substitute. I got them all lined up for recess, using the same song that my CT uses, and we went outside (Friday was 85°+). Up until this point I haven’t felt very strongly about the singing, but I think it might be growing on me…After 40 minutes of recess the students began lining themselves up. I knew they were hot and sweaty and ready for a drink, but I wasn’t too comfortable pushing my boundaries with this substitute, after all, I’d been at the school and in this classroom for over an hour now and she hadn’t even introduced herself (even after I did!). She just kept playing, and I’m almost positive that she was under the impression that the longer she kept them outside, the less she had to do with them inside.
I finally couldn’t take it anymore; I was hot too! I lined the kids up and she caught on to what I was doing and gathered a few more towards the line and we went inside.
When my CT walks the students to the playground she has certain stopping points where she waits for everyone to catch up and makes sure that everyone is still being quiet. I knew if I let the substitute lead them into the school she wouldn’t do these things, so I went ahead and kept the lead. When we got back into the classroom I went straight to the drinking fountain and used the same routine that the students are used to.
For the remainder of the day I kept the lead and took my liberty with this classroom. It felt really good to be able to maintain structure in the classroom; after all, who wants 24 screaming/crying Kindergarteners?
So, what did I learn from this experience? Aside from seeing all of the things that this substitute did wrong, I realized how important structure is in a classroom. This isn’t something that I just learned; it’s something that I practice every Sunday morning in my Sunday school classroom. But it is something that was able to see in a new setting.

Tree Homes

We started a sciene unit today on Tree Homes. It wasn't until after class today that I really found out what all that entails, but basically, the students are going to be studying and observing different characteristics of tree's and the relationships that different animals have with them. On Monday we went outside and sat around a big locus tree in front of the school and everyone was given the opportunity to make an observation about the tree. Lot's of students commented on how much fun it was to climb tree's, which tied in the animals aspect of this unit. We looked at a piece of bark that had fallen off the tree, stood close to the tree and looked at some different insects that were living on the tree and even tore off some leaves of the tree branches so that we could compare them to other leaves around the area. This entire time I couldn't help but think about our In the Woods activity and how cool it is that I'm actually doing something similar in my placement. The kids loved putting on their scientist caps and really thinking about this large tree.
From there the lesson went back inside where my CT brought out a cardboard box tree that she's been using for several years and the students were able to point out differences about this tree and the one they observed outside. They were then told that the tree would be in the room for the next 3 weeks and at any point during free time they thought of something to add of this tree they were allowed to do so. I can only imagine what kinds of drawings are going to be taped to this tree next week!
Journals were the same story this week...everyone wanted to read me theirs. As I'm actually walking around the room I'm seeing even more of a variation in writing skills and it's a reality check for me. Teaching in a classroom isn't about teaching every student the same thing. What about those who are "gifted" and those who have a different ability? There is a wide learning gap between those who know how to write a simple sentence, with correct spellings, and those who are still struggling to remember how to hold a pencil correctly. How do you accomodate for all learners? There's a million dollar question!
As of right now I've observed about 10 hours of this classroom, including all the singing and I'm beginning to question it a little...The thing with singing to your students in a soft, calming voice is that those who are paying the least attention to their assignment and/or those who are able to multi-taks better than others are always the first to hear the instructions being given via songs. So, the same students are always hearing instructions first and always doing them first, and the same students who are only doing something because someone else is are always stuck doing just that. It's almost as if the students are learning from each other rather than the teacher, which is good for them to be able to identify with their peers, however, at the same time the same students are always last to catch on. Obviously this is just something I was thinking about as I was sitting here typing this and I need to think through it more clearly, but as someone who is not a big fan of the singing aspect, I feel that it may have it's pitfalls.