Lesson Plan: 3 (Semester 6)

First off let me say that I have finally gotten my first feedback on a lesson. We are over half way through the semester and this is the only feedback back I have gotten for a lesson so far. It was good. I only got one point off for...I'm not sure, but this makes me hopeful that my other lessons are going to be good too. Well maybe. It depends on the professor I turned the lesson plan in to.

Also I got an email from my cohort professor and I may have one less lesson that I have to implement at placement. That would mean that I only have this lesson and one other lesson to teach and I would be finished. I still have one other project I need to do at placement, but that should be simple.

Science Lesson; Living Things

Objectives:

1. Students will be able to learn about living things by making a collage of living things by cutting pictures out of a magazine. 

Common Core Standards:

• K.MD.A.2 - Directly compare two objects with a measurable attribute in common, to see which has "more of" / "less of" the attribute and describe the difference. 

Next Generation Science Standards:

• K-LS1-1 - Use observations to describe patterns of what plants and animals (including humans) need to survive. 

Materials:

- What's Alive by Kathleen Weidner Zoehfled

- Magazines

- Scissors

- Glue Sticks

- Pencils

- Living Things Construction Paper

- Pictures of Living Things 

- Pictures of Non-living Things

- Living and Non-living Things Header

Introduction:

• Ask the students, "What does it mean to be alive?"

Procedures:

• Read What's Alive to the students and after reading ask the students again, "What does it mean to be alive?"
• Then sort the pictures of living and non living things together as a class on the board.

Assessment:

• Students will use magazines to find pictures of living things to create a collage. 

Literacy Bag

Front 

For this project I picked one student in the classroom that is going to receive this bag. The student will take the bag home for one week and read the books and complete the games in the bag with their family. The bag needs to be themed based and the file folder games need to relate to the books.

I'm giving this to my student this upcoming Thursday and he will get to keep it over his Spring Break. I'm asking for it back on Monday, April 22 to make sure that I get it back in time because that following Tuesday it's due.

Back     

Materials Needed:

• Bag that is decorated with the theme
• 3 or more Books that are fiction and non-fiction
• 3 or more Literacy File Folder games
• Additional list of 3 more books
• Additional list of 2 more activities
• Organized literacy bag with directions
• Family Evaluation Form
• Introduction Letter
• Checklist of Materials

Activity 1: Real Words vs. Nonsense Words

I created this activity and I'm pretty proud of how it turned out. I'm glad I used shark teeth to place the words on to make it look more nicer. and shark related.

Activity 2: Label the Shark

This took some time trying to find a good shark labeling image to use that wasn't already labeled or too many parts to label. I just had them label the parts that went along with Book 2.

Activity 3: A-B-C Shark Order

I got the different sharks from Three Dinosaurs. It's free to download. I just made a cover for the folder and the answer key.

Activity 4: Story Sequencing
I added this activity last second because I felt that my other ones weren't really literacy activities. This goes along with book 4. 

Book 1: Shocking Sharks by Charlotte Guillain

This book is great for beginner readers. It uses large font with only a few sentences on each page. 

Book 2: Surprising Sharks by Nicola Davies

I liked this one because it showed different types of sharks and the different parts of the shark which I needed for activity 2.

Book 3: I'm a Shark by Bob Shea

Book 4: The Three Little Fish and the Big Bad Shark by Ken Geist

Side Notes:
This project has been more time consuming and difficult then I thought it would be. I wish I had worked on it more during Spring Break. The big problem for me was trying to find appropriate/good books. I don't have time to just sit at a library and looks at books, besides it way to many to go through, so I would put books on hold to pick up. I didn't want to purchase books unless I looked at them first and I can't do that with ordering them online.

I also had to laminate the file folder games and decorate the bag. I wanted to make sure everything looked nice and neat. One thing I would have changed was not to use the Velcro because it made the pieces bigger and it made it difficult to put everything into the bag.

Student Teaching: Day 7 (Semester 6)

Yesterday at placement went well. I did the morning routine and I felt that it went fine. My mentor didn't have anything bad to say about it. She only asked me how I felt that it went. Before the students came into the classroom, I asked her if there was a certain order that it had to be in and she said no. This helped me feel much better about doing it because I was worried that I was going to mess up the order, but there is none.

I finished everything for my screening project, so I didn't have to worry about taking time to pull my student aside to give him the assessments. This made it a much more relaxing day with not having to worry about having to get assignments done. It was a normal day. I would walk around and make sure the students were on task and if they needed help I would assist them.

I also do some quick assessing of the students on sight words, counting to 50, and counting to hundred by 10. I would pull the student aside in the classroom and ask them to count to 50 for me or read the sight words on the paper. This didn't take long at all since Anne was also assessing too.

Next week I'm going to be teaching a science lesson to the whole class. This will be the first time I'm teaching all of the students. I talked to my mentor about what to teach and she told me to teach a lesson about living things because that week they are learning about living and non-living. Anne is teaching non-living on Tuesday since we don't have class that day and we both can't teach a science lesson on the same day, so I will teach mine Thursday.

No class again today. I woke up early and looked at my phone and my professor sent an email saying she doesn't feel good, so we wouldn't be meeting. I don't think my Cohort Professor is going to be happy about that because we really need to discuss the Service Learning Project that is coming up and my Friday Professor is suppose to help us with the project.

College Organization: Tip 6

Ask the Professor Questions

This isn't really an organization tip, but it's something good to do and know. On the first day of class don't be afraid to ask the professor questions:

• Do you need a notebook or a binder? It might be a lot of note taking in the class, so you need a notebook or the teacher might pass out a lot of hand outs instead and a binder is better to use to store them.

                                          

• Do you need to bring the textbook every class? Lugging a heavy textbook around is no fun and it's especially annoying if you don't even use it in class, so then you carried it around for no reason. 

These questions can save you time and energy, so ask your professor and mostly likely other students in the class were wondering the same thing.