Engineering Lesson at Brigham

          On Thursday, we had our last class at Brigham. We taught our engineering lesson in the kindergarten classroom. This lesson was much different than any of the other lessons we taught at Brigham, because it was in a small group setting. There were four teachers with four students. This made for a very personalized experience for the students because we got to work with them one-on-one. In our lesson, we talked about building towers, and what they needed in order for them to be tall. We explained that they needed a large base and plenty of support so they can stand on their own. We brought in pictures of tall buildings around the world as examples for the students to look at while they built their own towers. These pictures ended up being instrumental in helping the students understand the lesson. They looked at the buildings and wanted to make their towers just like these buildings.

          After we explained what towers needed in order to be tall, and what we were doing in our lesson, we handed pipe cleaners and straws out to each student. Their task was to build a tall tower that could stand on its own. We told the students that we were having this issue, and we needed their help. From the very beginning, the students were very excited and engaged during this lesson. They really enjoyed building with the pipe cleaners and straws. It was also very helpful that we were able to give the students a one-on-one experience because some of the students were not getting it and needed the extra help from a teacher. The boy that I was working with, did not get the idea that you needed a base and supports in order to build the tower. He was very concerned about having the tallest tower, and didn’t seem to care if it stood on its own or not. When I tried to talk to him about it, he didn’t really seem to understand. I’m not sure if this was because of the language barrier and he couldn’t understand me, or if this was because he truly did not understand the concept of this lesson. He did grab the pictures, and looked off of those most of the time, so I’m very glad we did print those out for them to look at. Although the other students didn’t seem to look at it much, I’m glad it helped him. Some of the other students really seemed to understand the lesson, and actually built a tower that was pretty tall that stood on its own.

          I think this lesson helped me reach my goal, because I had to find different ways to talk to the boy that I was working with, to help him understand. We used the pictures, and that really seemed to help him. I’m glad that we thought to bring in a visual for them to look at. The picture below is the sheet with the buildings that we brought in as a visual for the students.

EXCEEDS: Included picture of the visual we used. 

Clinical Science Lesson

This year I am at Cedar Ridge Elementary School/Brigham Early Learning Center. I am placed in a lively kindergarten classroom of 27, which I love very much, with a cooperating teacher who is very similar to me in teaching style and personality. I have taken over a few aspects of the classroom, one of these being a guided reading group every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. When I did my science guided reading lesson, I was working with the higher reading group, which consists of six students.

I gave my science guided reading lesson over two days, I had about fifteen minutes to a half hour each, on October 27 and 29. My teacher thought this would be the best time for me to give my lesson. She also thought it would be a good idea for me to incorporate this science information into my guided reading group.  For this lesson, I did not use a lesson plan template that I would normally use for class, instead I used a weekly guided reading lesson plan template that my cooperating teacher uses. I thought this template would be the best template for the lesson that I was giving. Even looking back on the lesson now, I think this template was the best for me to use and it helped me stay on track for the week. This lesson also included other things I would be doing with the students, such as working on sight words. It is very important that the students, even though they are the higher reading group, continue to practice their sight words. We did this in a fun, engaging way for them. These words, among others, of course, helped them read this book.

During my lesson, the students read the book “How Plants Grow” and we talked about some of the vocabulary words that were in the book, such as seeds, soil, and sunlight. Before they read the book we went on a picture walk, and looked at all of the pictures in the book. We looked at the words that might be hard for them to read, and went over them together. After they read the book, the students filled out a 3-2-1 worksheet, where they wrote down three things they learned while reading, two interesting facts, and one question they still had. Some of the students were able to finish the worksheet in the allotted time, but there were a few who struggled with the book a little bit and did not have time to finish the worksheet. There was one girl especially who struggled with the book, so I had to give her more attention to her than I did to the other students. The other students did pretty well with the book though, and I think the pictures definitely helped them get through it. She also used different reading strategies to help her decode the words she did not understand.

Throughout the lesson, the students were engaged with the book, as well as the worksheet. They all seemed to enjoy the book and were really getting into the lesson. I think there were some aspects of the lesson that went very well, but there are definitely some things that I could have done better, that I could improve upon. At the beginning of the lesson, I could have given clearer instructions to the students. I think some of the students were a little confused with the worksheet, and so I was attending to the different students as they finished reading their story. It was difficult to attend to each student who was confused with the worksheet, because I was still helping the one girl finish reading the story. There was quite a bit going on, so it got a little overwhelming for a few minutes in the middle of the lesson. If I would have given better instructions at the beginning of the lesson this would have cleared up their confusion. If you look at the worksheets that I handed in, you can see that on one of my students started to draw on the back because he was unsure of what he was supposed to do in each section of the worksheet. If I would have explained this better beforehand, this would not have happened, and he would have had more time to work on this activity. This was only a little bump in the lesson though, and the rest went smoothly.

I’m glad that the students enjoyed reading the book. They all seemed to find the information presented to them very interesting. In the book, they talked about the different places where plants can grow. These places included the ocean, the dessert, in sand, on rocks, and other various places. The students thought it was so cool that plants can live in such unique and harsh environments. One student even asked a very insightful question on her 3-2-1 worksheet. She asked “Why do plants need sunlight to grow?” I wish I had seen this question before I finished the lesson so I could tell her the answer and clear up and confusion for her. I also wish that I had provided more opportunities for the students in my group to ask questions about plants, so that I could answer them for them.

Because we only did this lesson during station time, it ran over two days. It was kind of nice that we did it this way, so that I had more time to teach this idea to the students. I think if I had more time though, I would have made a diagram of the plant where they could label the different parts of the plant, like they did in the book. This would have given them a very nice visual for the students. Overall, I think the lesson went over well, and the students all seemed to enjoy the lesson and the science behind it all. I would like to incorporate science into the classroom more, because of the way the students all reacted to it.

EXCEEDS: I turned in the students’ worksheets that they filled out. 

Sight Lesson at Brigham

Last Thursday, I was in the preschool room while Laine and Brittany taught. They taught a lesson on sight to the preschool students, and it was a very well thought out and executed lesson. The students and even the teacher loved it. I really enjoyed being a part of this lesson because it was really fun for the kids and for us teachers! They talked about sight, made binoculars from toilet paper tubes, and then played I spy with their new binoculars. The students all enjoyed making their binoculars and playing I spy with them. I think this was a great way to get them thinking about sight and the fact that they use their eyes to see.

I honestly didn’t feel like I moved towards my goal at all during this lesson because I didn’t even really interact with any of the English language learner students during this lesson. Most of the lesson, I interacted with this one girl, who was definitely not an English language learner. I held the toilet paper roll while she colored it and I helped her take them together. I had a wonderful interaction with her though. We talked the whole time she was coloring her toilet paper tubes, and she really seemed to be getting into the lesson. I’m sure some of the other teachers had opportunities to work with the ELL students in the classroom though.

Next week, when I am in the classroom, I plan on interacting with the ELL students more. Luckily, the next time we are at Brigham, I will be in the kindergarten classroom where there is more opportunity to interact with ELL students. I very much enjoy interacting with these students and I strive to interact with them in the best way for them. When working with these students, I feel like I strive more to work towards my goal of gaining confidence with ELL students. I am lucky to be placed at Brigham right next to that classroom. I am definitely more comfortable with these students because I see them every other day. I think this has helped me gain confidence working with ELL students because I have had so much interaction with them already. I have also talked with the teacher and seen what she does with her students. Because it is a bilingual classroom, she talks and reads to her students in both English and Spanish. I think it is awesome that she does this because it ensures that everyone in the class will understand what she is saying. I know that as a general educator I will not necessarily be able to do this for all of my students, because there could be several different languages in my class, all of which I don’t know. Because of this, I will make sure that I provide extra support to my ELL students. There are many ways I can do this. I can provide lots of visual support for them, I can partner them up with someone who can help them, and I can ask them questions to make sure they are understanding what I am saying.

EXCEEDS: I connected my blog entry to my clinical experience, and I said what I could do to support ELL students in my future class. 

Recycling Lesson at Brigham

Last Thursday I was in the Kindergarten classroom again, but this time I wasn't teaching my own lesson, instead, I was an extra teacher in the room while Lisa and Amanda taught. Their lesson was on recycling, and I think it went smoothly overall. Being an extra teacher, I just sat back and took notes on one student and how she responded to the lesson. This particular student was very engaged during the lesson and was always raising her hand to answer questions. She spoke in English every time she answered and seemed to understand what the teachers were saying as they spoke in English. I think it really helped during their lesson that they had the visuals for the students to actually see. These visuals were especially helpful for these students because not all of them might have the understanding of the language to get it without the visuals. It was helpful as the students were working on their picture sorts to actually see the objects there. The word aluminum really confused a lot of students and they had a harder time grasping that category. I think Lisa and Amanda did a great job of explaining it and even had a visual for them, but it’s just a hard word that any kindergartener would get mixed up on, especially ones that are bilingual.

I am still working towards my goal that I set for myself at the beginning of the semester. These goals are: 1) Help the students learn in the best way for them, 2) Gain experience working with English Language Learners, and 3) Gain confidence when working with English Language Learners. I am definitely gaining experience and confidence working with English Language Learners every week we are at Brigham for science. I am also getting this experience during my clinical time at Brigham. Because the bilingual kindergarten classroom is right next to my classroom and Mrs. Silva and my CT are friends, I am with this class quite a bit. Every time I am with them, I am thinking of ways to interact with them and get to know them. This experience has been so helpful for me, because I really haven’t had much interaction with English Language Learners before this. I think it is great that Mrs. Silva can fluently speak Spanish and that she incorporates this into her teaching. She prints nearly everything that is hanging up in her classroom or that is going home with the students in both English and in Spanish. She also reads stories to them in Spanish. It is wonderful that she is able to incorporate their native language in her teaching.

The language barrier is definitely there for some of these students, but it is so important to push past it and to help these students learn in the best way for them. The other day, Mrs. Silva was telling me that one of her students, who is one of the smartest in her class and is bilingual, was considered low and at-risk the year before. After looking more into it, they realized that he actually was not low, but they thought he was because they were testing him in English, and not Spanish. Because they did not test him in his native language they thought he was lower than he actually was.

EXCEEDS: I made a connection to my clinical placement. 

Living/Nonliving Lesson at Brigham

This last Thursday, Kristie and I implemented our Living/Nonliving Lesson at Brigham in the kindergarten classroom. I think overall the lesson went well, but it is always good to reflect on your teaching to make it better for next time. First of all, I wish that we had an opportunity to be in the kindergarten classroom before we actually gave our lesson. I felt like it was a little awkward going in there for the first time and teaching this lesson when the students had no idea who we were. This also would have helped us become accustomed to the classroom and help us get to know the students’ names. We were not able to call on the students by name, and had to point to them to have them answer. I think it was a little strange that we went to do the get to know you games, we did it in the preschool classroom instead of the kindergarten classroom, because I really needed to get to know the kindergarteners more than the preschoolers. I think if I had more opportunity to get to know the students, it would have gone better.

Regardless, I still think the lesson ran smoothly, given the circumstances. The students were engaged from the start, which was definitely helpful. When we first started the lesson, they did not know what it meant to be living or nonliving. We showed them the cookie monster living/nonliving clip, and I think the students enjoyed it. They laughed along with it, and afterwards were able to tell us that something needs to breathe, eat, and grow, in order to be living. After we went over the clip, we divided the class into five groups and took them outside. When we made our predictions outside, I was surprised to see many of them make correct predications. It was nice to see that they had actually learned something from the clip, but there were still a few students who still did not know. From this, we could tell that we needed to cover this again for those students. When we took them inside, we had our anchor chart hanging up, and we went over what was on that. There were several columns, item, Need air?, Need food?, Move?, Grow?, and Living? We put the sticky note with the item and prediction under the item column. We them went through each column to see if the item was living or nonliving. This part seemed to confuse the students a little. The first item we put up was a leaf, and we asked the questions in each column, which seemed to be very hard for the students to grasp. They didn’t really have the background knowledge that trees/leaves need air and food in order to survive. So we had to explain to them that although it doesn’t seem like they need these things, they actually do. After the first few examples of this, though, they seemed to grasp it more. If I were to do this lesson over again, I would have started with a less confusing item, like an animal. This way, it would more concrete and easier for them to understand. Although, it was harder to explain at first, and we had a bit of a rough start with that, I think the students started to get it by the end of the lesson. I think the lesson really helped the students see why it was living or nonliving, and helped them visualize it, especially for the visual learners and English Language Learners. I think going outside, and using the students’ responses for this portion really helped engage the students, and give them some pride in their answers.

As I was implementing my lesson, I worked towards attaining my goal of working with ELL students better, and helping them learn in the best way possible for them. Since it was my first time being in that classroom, there were a few things I noticed about it. I noticed that everything in the classroom was both in English and in Spanish, which I thought was awesome for those students who might need one or the other. I wish that we had maybe translated our anchor chart into Spanish as well, to help the students who might need that Spanish. If I were to do this lesson over, I would definitely do this, although, I think it was fine for most of the students. I think it was easier working towards this goal as the teacher of the classroom because it really helped me get a feel for what it would be like to work with these students. All of the students in my group spoke at least some English, but there was one boy who I don’t think spoke the best English. When I asked him to pick an object that he saw, he said “music” and when I asked him again to pick something that he saw, he said the same thing. I don’t know if he picked that because he didn’t really know what else to say, or if he really just wanted to say music. I think that maybe if I had asked him in Spanish, and expected a Spanish response from him, then maybe I would have gotten a better response from him. In my future classroom, I plan on being very accommodating for my ELL students. I think the experience I get from being in this bilingual classroom this year will be very helpful, especially since I don’t have much prior experience working with these students. I look forward to spending more time in this classroom and gaining more experience. I also look forward to observing the other teachers in our class implement their lessons, to see how they do and how they accommodate these students. I think it was also helpful for these teachers to see how we implemented our lesson, so that they could learn from it, and plan their lessons accordingly.

Additional Living/Nonliving Resources

http://www.sciencelearn.org.nz/Science-Stories/Earthworms/Living-or-non-living

http://schoolmediainteractive.com/view/object/clip/7ABC07018B522E94840BA8ABAC521D31

EXCEEDS: Included additional resources in Living/Nonliving. 

First Science Day at Brigham!

          There are a few goals that I have set for myself as we work with the students in the preschool and kindergarten classes at Brigham. These goals are: 1) Help the students learn in the best way for them, 2) Gain experience working with English Language Learners, and 3) Gain confidence when working with English Language Learners. I think the first day in the preschool classroom went well, but it was not really what I was expecting it to be. We were told that the preschool class would not have any English Language Learners, but this was not the case. There was definitely one, but more likely, more than that. There was one boy who spoke Spanish, and clearly had a hard time understanding us. While we were playing the get to know you game, the boy next to him had to translate what we were saying to him in Spanish. It was good that we decided to do this game, because it helped us get to know these students better. If we had known there were English Language Learners in the classroom, we would have prepared better for this. It made me realize that I need to figure out how to communicate with these students the best way that I can. It did not look like there was much Spanish, or other languages, incorporated in the classroom. For example, there were not any Spanish words on the wall, or around the classroom, and the teacher spoke to the students in English. This makes me wonder whether the students actually did not know English, or if they were just not listening. As of right now, in order to reach my goals, I plan on getting to know the students in my classroom well, including what languages they speak, and the learning style that works best for them. I will learn how to best communicate with them. I think this semester will help me get a better understanding of working with English Language Learners. I have not had that much experience of my own working with these students, so I am hoping to gain experience, as well as gain confidence.

          Unfortunately, I do not have any ELL students in my classroom right now, so I don’t get to work with these students as much as I would like to. I think I would really enjoy working with these students and trying to figure out how to communicate with them, and their parents. In my future classroom, if I have any ELLs, I would like to incorporate their native languages in the classroom. I could label things in the classroom in their language, I could translate letters to be sent home for parents if needed, and I could provide books that are in the students’ native languages. It would definitely be challenging to have ELL students in my classroom, depending on their level, but I think I could definitely do it.

          I found an article online about helping ELL students succeed in the classroom. I think it has some very helpful tips for working ELLs. This could be a good reminder when working ELL students. It is http://www.learnnc.org/lp/pages/760 .

Exceeds: I provided an article on how to help ELL students succeed in the classroom. 

My Science Autobiography

          My name is Katie Stellwagen. I was born in New Lenox, IL., which is right by Joliet, about an hour south of Chicago. I have lived in the same house all of my life, with my amazing family of seven. There are many schools in our district, so I attended several different elementary schools within the New Lenox School District. I've been trying to think about past experiences throughout the years, but I honestly can't remember all that much about past science experiences. There are a few things, however, that have stuck out to me. I remember learning about chicks, and learning about the chick embryo development in the egg, in my preschool class. We had an incubator full of eggs, and every day we recorded in our journals how the chicks looked inside the eggs, until they finally hatched. In kindergarten, I remember learning about the life cycle of a butterfly. We watched the whole process from eggs to butterflies. Along the way, we made predictions and observations in our journals. At the end of the unit, we released the butterflies in our own butterfly garden. These experiences really stuck out to me because they were hands on, and very interesting to my younger self. In fifth grade we went to this camp where we dissected frogs and owl pellets. I did not have as much interest in these activities, but they have still stuck out to me. 

          I don't remember much in the way of science, other than these experiences, until high school, where I took biology, chemistry, and physics. There are a few things that I remember from these classes. I remember enjoying chemistry, because it had a lot to do with math and numbers, and it all just made sense. We did many different labs in this class, but there aren't any that I really remember specifically. I really enjoyed physics class, because, like chemistry, it was numbers and math, and I liked that. We did a lot with sound waves and how that all works, and I found that very interesting, being a musical person myself. We did an egg drop experiment, where we had to drop an egg from our stadium bleachers, and we had to find a way to protect the egg so it wouldn't break in the process. Science has always been a subject that I enjoy though, because it can be very hands on and engaging. I always appreciated the teachers that taught science in different ways to appeal to students with different learning styles. I think the labs and hands on activities accommodated to many different styles of learning and I think that's one of the reasons everyone enjoyed them so much.

          Growing up, my hometown was not very diverse. I don't think this really affected my scientific upbringing in any way. I also don't feel that because I was a girl, I was treated any differently when it came to science. I even had several female science teachers throughout my schooling. Our teachers were very good about making sure they didn't feed these stereotypes. 

          All of my experiences throughout school have helped shape how I want to be as a teacher. Because I enjoyed the science activities I experienced so much, I will incorporate science in a fun and engaging way in my future classroom. I will do so in a way that is accommodating to many different learning styles. I will need to take this into account when I am preparing my lesson plans. 

          The picture below is from this last summer when I was involved in vacation bible school at my church. I was the leader of the preschool, and I tried to incorporate little "science" activities in our day. The kids absolutely loved it! This experience has also helped me realize how important it is to include science in a fun, engaging way in the classroom.