Lesson #3 - Force and Motion (hovercraft!)

We taught our third lesson yesterday to our first graders. They have just begun a science unit on force and motion (push and pull). This was the lesson we were actually most nervous about, but I think it was probably our best one! It was a great way to end a busy week. We began the lesson in the classroom by figuring out what they have already learned. The students were able to tell me that they were studying force and motion, push, pull, and turn. I asked them what each of those forces was, and most of the students were quick to respond. It seems that they have caught on to this concept pretty quickly. I used a couple of examples. The students then went through some more examples including dropping a book, bouncing a ball, typing on a keyboard, and were asked to determine whether there was a push or a pull occurring. The book and ball were a little bit advanced, but we did have one student eager to answer that gravity pulls! It seemed that he was the only one to know the concept, so we worked on beginning to explain that to them. They were also asked to stand up and show us what a push motion looks like in the air as well as a pull. They are beginning to really grasp that a pull brings something toward you and a push moves it away. We then moved to the cafeteria for the hovercraft portion of the lesson. The students were very excited for this. We did stop a few times to tell them that they needed to be on their best behavior if they wanted to participate...I have never seen this class so quiet. We reminded them again what push and pull look like. They each had a turn riding on the hovercraft. We took turns pushing and pulling them to float them around the room. The students on the craft and the students watching determined what we were about to do (push or pull) by our motions, and were able to tell us which way they would move as a result. All of the students were able to answer and had a lot of fun riding around the cafeteria.
I think that the best parts of this lesson were making the students show us what push and pull looked like. By having them get up and act it out, they were able to really see what happened. I think the examples all helped to solidify this, and the hovercraft topped it off. They were able to learn and practice while having fun.
If I were to do this activity again, I might have thought of other ways to have the rest of the class more actively involved while watching the hovercraft. Since only 2 children were on at a time, the rest of the class was watching. It worked out fine since they were excited to watch each other. We did stop to ask the whole class a few questions between riders, but I would have liked to have gotten them more involved somehow.
We are going to meet our first grade teacher today for some feedback on all of our lessons, so hopefully I'll come away with even more ideas.

Lesson #2 - Turkey Cookies

We taught our second lesson to our first grade class on Tuesday. This lesson went well overall. We gave each student materials on a plate, and read directions to them step by step to make a "turkey cookie." We also had the steps written out on a board for them to look at if they chose to. After they completed their cookies, they were allowed to eat them, so we had a little break. Then, we started the rest of the activity. I read them a list of instructions to make the cookies that were out of order from what they had done. They were quick to tell me that they were not correct. The students were given a copy of what I was reading. They then cut out the steps, put them in the correct order, and glued them to a worksheet we had given them. Overall, this went well, and the kids were of course excited to get a chocolatey snack! I was happy to see that they really understood the concept of having steps sequenced and the importance of doing this.
All of the students were able to put the steps back into order, but many of them did need help reading the list. We had initially wanted the students to write a list, but we decided that too many of them would not be able to do that, so we switched to the cutting activity. While we tried our best to make the instructions easy to read, some of the words were unknown for the kids. We had 4 teachers in the room to walk around and help, so this was okay, but we did talk about the lesson afterwards and came up with a few ideas to change the lesson to be on a more independent level for the kids. Including a picture prompt seems to be the easiest way to make the words more accessible. Francine actually did this with one of the children, and it seemed to work well. I think that if I were to do this lesson again, I would include some pictures or color coding to help the students read the list. This activity was fun to do with food, but also could be done with paper or other craft materials.
Another thing I did with the students who had trouble reading was to talk through the steps with them. Since this was not a reading lesson, but rather a lesson on sequencing, I did not want to focus too much on the reading. If the student was able to tell me what the next step was, I felt that they were successful, so I would help them find the piece that said the step. Again, since there were many helpers in the class, this was okay to do, but would be difficult if I had to do this on my own.
Overall, this lesson went well, but again, there are things I would change for next time in a first grade class.

Lesson #1 - 11/9/06

Today Marianne and I taught our first lesson to the first grade class. We taught a lesson on nocturnal and diurnal animals. The students have been studying animals, and are getting ready to finish up that unit. The teacher had mentioned in our planning that she usually likes to include nocturnal/diurnal in the animal unit, but was not going to have time, so we took it on.
We used our time to discuss animals and their habits for a few minutes and determined what they already knew. A few of the students were familiar with the term nocturnal, but did not know the term diurnal. We did an interactive read aloud of a book on this concept, reviewed various animals, determining whether they are nocturnal or diurnal, and had the students create two murals using animals prints we gave them.
Overall, I think the lesson went well. I will be interested to receive some feedback from the teacher when we can meet with her. Prior to the reading, Marianne took some time to hear about the class rules of read alouds from the children themselves. I think this was a great way to start the lesson and remind the kids that the rules are the same even if we are teaching the lesson. They really enjoyed having some time to color and cut their animals out. I think that this activity was a good way to break up the lesson and give them time to move around. The students went back to their desk for this. While they were coloring, Marianne and I each visited with each student to help them determine whether their animal was nocturnal or diurnal. This worked well to give us time to evaluate if all students had understood. We were able to reinforce the idea and ask them questions individually. The repetition seemed to help them grasp the concept as well. The class was able to work well together creating the murals, and all the students were excited to help create the background of the murals.
There were a few parts of the lesson that I might have changed if I were re-teaching this lesson. I think that we could have made the book more interactive, asking more questions while we were reading. While the book is not very long, students struggled a little bit not to talk. We could have also tried to reinforce the idea that we would take questions, not hear stories during the reading. I'm not sure this would have helped since they were very excited to tell us everything they saw in each picture and any story that related to the animal we were reading about. I also think that I might have used the worksheet differently. We gave them a page with all the animals we were handing out on it. Underneath the small picture is a clue about whether the animal is nocturnal or diurnal. We read this with them. Some students followed along, but others seemed distracted by having the paper in front of them. I might have waited to hand it out until after our discussion or tried to use it in small groups, rather than with the whole class. Lastly, we began by using the terms awake and asleep to describe the terms, but as the lesson progressed, we found that they understood better when we used awake for both terms. We began teaching nocturnal starts with 'n', so those animals are awake at night and diurnal starts with 'd' and those animals are awake during the day. I wish we had put this phrase together for them in the beginning of the lesson. I found myself stating that nocturnal animals were awake at night and asleep during the day, which was a lot to think about at once.
The only other thing I had trouble with was knowing the best way to tell a child when their answer was incorrect. I was able to do so, and usually just kept with that student and continued the discussion until the correct answer was produced, but I am still feeling a little bit unsure about how to tell a student they are wrong while being supportive. I think that this is easier with some types of answers, but not others. I will need to work on this.

Field Visit #5 - 11/2/06

Today was an interesting day in first grade. I saw a change in behaviors among a few of the students, as it appears there is a new romance beginning in the class. It seemed to just add an extra challenge for the teacher. She tried to keep the students a little bit further apart from each other as they worked on the rug to help avoid distraction. It seemed that the little girl involved couldn't resist trying to get closer and closer to the little boy, who seemed mildly interested, but not quite as publicly affectionate. To make things even more interesting, the girl's friend seems to be getting very close to the same boy. This caused a few distractions throughout calendar time, but it did give us a chance to see how the teacher handled the issue. She occassionally would ask someone to get up to do one of the calendar activities and then encourage them to sit elsewhere when they were finished. The teaching assistant also took a part from the back of the room of asking a student to get up and do something and then sit near her or in a spot with more space.

We also had the chance to talk to the teacher about the children who leave for pullouts throughout the day. I asked how she handles them coming back in to the middle of a lesson. She explained that for the most part they know what they should be doing, but that it took a few weeks to get that down. She also mentioned that the students are not afraid to ask a friend or the teacher if they are confused. They do not come in and sit, staring blankly, but are very vocal when they are not sure what to do.

We were also able to talk about differentiation in the classroom, as there is a wide range of abilities within the group. This came up while discussing our lessons for the next two weeks that we'll be teaching. We talked about different ways to address the ability level differences during lessons. It sounds like there is often a group of 4-6 students who work on a slightly different version of the lesson, as they are a little bit behind the rest of the class. We asked if this bothered them or the other students, and it seems that it really doesn't bother them. The teacher said she had the same reservations at first, but explained that the children just got used to it and it doesn't bother them anymore. At first there were some questions about why one group was doing something different, but they now understand that some people are stronger in some areas than others, so it will be better for everyone to have various versions of the project or assignment. It made me feel better and more comfortable that the children handle this well, but I do wonder how this would work without a teaching assistant to help another group. I also wonder if this is the case with older children as well.

We had the opportunity to discuss our lesson plans with our teacher that we will be teaching over the next two weeks. We will be teaching on the 9th, 14th, and 16th at around 9:30 am after calendar time is done. We will be teaching two science lessons, one on nocturnal/diurnal animals and one on force and motion (push and pull), and one writing lesson working on procedure or step writing. Differentiation for this last lesson will be the most difficult, and we are still deciding exactly how our small group will be completing the lesson. We may have one of us work with the small group and do an interactive or shared writing while the other works with the rest of the class as they write individually or in small groups as well. I am starting to feel like I know the kids better and better, but am still nervous about our first lesson! More to come on how it goes....