Hi folks, and welcome back to my weekly reflections. This week was great; I got to do many this in the classroom. My goal was being achieved every time I stepped into the classroom, which benefits me in the long run, especially when it comes to me teaching in two weeks! I genuinely believe that when I do teach my actual lesson, it will be very engaging and smooth because I’ve been teaching Science and Social Studies for weeks now!! I couldn’t believe that I would be this involved in the classroom that soon, but I do not regret it not one bit!! For this week’s social studies lesson, I read a book about presidents and the presidential election because President’s Day is coming up. I did a fun activity where the students wrote and analyzed why they chose one of the candidates as President. I had two reasons why I did that type of activity. The first one was to work on their opinion writing because my MT told me the students would work on that in the next few weeks, so this was a great way to integrate that. The Second was to read and hear why they chose that candidate. I also did an activity where I printed out slips of paper where they can vote for who they want as President by placing a checkmark next to their name and placing it in a ballot box I created. I then counted the votes, represented them through tallies, and integrated what they are currently learning in math. The lesson was a success, and the students had a blast. I was very impressed because I did not know I could engage students in an activity that well. My goal next week is to have a better and more successful lesson for my Science section. I want to have students learn more about Science. Since the weather is changing, having the students learn more about the different seasons and create journals to record what they observe is a great way to incorporate natural Science into their lives.
Since my first lesson of teaching and being observed is coming up in March. So I figured out what my Science topic will be: rainbows. Therefore, I found a great way to conduct science experiments for the students to learn more about rainbows. The students will love the lesson that will be taught because it will go along with the previous science lesson about seasons.
A few things I would change about what I am doing so far in the classroom is trying to teach more solid subjects such as English or Math. I am very grateful that I have the opportunity to take over Science/SS. Still, because I also have to teach Math and ELA, I would like to take over one of two lessons before I teach mine to the class.
Overall, I think I am being very hands-on and very engaging with the students. In addition, I now know how the classrooms run and picked up the system of how my MT runs the class.
Here are a few images of my activity for the Social Studies lesson. There’s an image that I thought was important to represent because it shows how my MT tries to teach students writing hooks for their papers.
