This was our 4th lesson that we taught, and we focused on “molting,” which the students seemed to have a good grasp on. Throughout the lesson we were to concentrate on the flow of the lesson, common misconceptions and content vocabulary.
Katelyn and I are a great team and we really work well with one another, so the flow of the lesson is never an issue for us. For this particular day, the flow went very smoothly like usual. The students do a great job transitioning from the carpet area to their caterpillars to their desks. With the students already being trained on good classroom behavior, of course this makes the flow of the lesson go a bit smoother. Having good classroom management will increase this flow.
For the misconceptions, we chose a couple to cover with the students. The first misconception was that a caterpillar has skin like humans. So we made sure to inform the students that although some people may call it “skin” it is actually an exoskeleton, or an external skeleton which is rigid and not soft like our own skin. The students seemed to understand this. The other misconception we talked about was that some people may confuse the caterpillars “head capsules” to their “frass,” or waste. We were sure to explain to the students that the head capsules are the small black circles and the frass is actually almost the same color as the food except rolled into a small ball. For their observation worksheets we had them count the head capsules and tell us how much frass there was, just to see their understandings of the difference between the two.
Finally we concentrated on content vocabulary, which is something we do in all of our lessons, as we make use of our word wall from day 1. Each week we introduce new vocabulary and place them up on the word wall which we review towards the end of the day and during each lesson. This week we actually did a vocabulary review game which included old words they learned about in our prior lessons and the words they just learned that day. We made the review game into Jeopardy, which the students loved! This was a great way to have the students work together in teams, to communicate with one another and review the vocabulary. The students did a great job with it! So again our lesson went very well and the students are enjoying every minute of it!
I love the image that you have incorporated about molting! I agree, practicing good classroom behavior is very important for teachers to do in the beginning of the year. Even if it takes a while, it will make the rest of the year that much easier and one will be able to incorporate so many more fun activities. Knowing that students can handle themselves and monitor their own behavior allows teachers to incorporate more exciting and hands on events, such as field trips or student teachers coming in to teach about science ect. I wish I got to see the Jeopardy game you and Katelyn played with the students it sounds like it was very fun yet helpful for understanding difficult concepts.
ReplyDeleteSarah,
ReplyDeleteWe did a vocaublary game too in our lesson, and I was shocked at how much the kids have learned and how much they enjoyed it! Great job on the flow of the classroom and keeping the kids focused. I'm sure it's hard to do with live caterpillars in the room.