Last Thursday, Jessie, Megan, and I were the girls in charge
of presenting a lesson in the kindergarten room at Brigham. If we are talking
about emotions that were experienced prior to walking into the classroom that
day, you just may be surprised about just how it was that I felt and thought
upon entering that afternoon compared to the last time I was in the
kindergarten room. First of all, I was extremely nervous about presenting the
lesson. “Why?” you may ask. Well, we had a strict 30 minutes to present a
lesson that we did not have much time to run through AND we had to collect A
LOT of assessment data. Let’s just say that my poor heart was beating really
fast. The funny thing is, my nerves instantly settled as soon as I crossed the
threshold into that kindergarten room. I do not know what it was about that day
and the change of emotions. It was either that I just realized my game plan, or
perhaps being in the classroom and working with kids is just perfect for me. I
would go with the latter. I was excited about the excitement that I had for
these students this week because I knew it would only help me to teach better and
love on the littles in the class.
Jessie, Megan, and I had prepared to teach a lesson about
Land, Water, and Air. Considering the lesson from the group that was in the
kindergarten classroom just one week before, we knew that our lesson had to
either tie in and build off of recycling, or we had to approach the topic in a
completely different way. We had decided to pick a new standard altogether and
build our ideas off from there. We chose this standard: Use a model to represent the relationship between the needs of different
plants or animals (including humans) and the places they live. We knew that
this standard would be easy to build off of because the kindergarteners had the
previous knowledge of what it was that a living thing needed to be considered a
living thing. We mentally collected this data from having been the teacher
helpers in the past few weeks in which the students sang a song and learned
about what a living thing needed to be considered a living thing as well as
what the three characteristics were of a living thing. W e thought that this
knowledge would create a perfect bridge into talking about the different needs
of living things and where it is that they live. Therefore, we decided to
briefly introduce habitats as a way to begin building up the students’
knowledge in this area.
For this lesson, the three of us
decided that we should do 3 stations in which the students would get to learn
about humans, plants, and animals and what it is that they need to live. We
also created an extension for what would be a day 2 for the lesson. In this
part, the students would begin to observe why humans, plants, and animals live
in certain places and why that is affected by what the living thing needs. I
really think that the stations idea was brilliant. We timed the rounds to be 5
minutes each which turned out to be a perfect amount of time for the students
to become engaged with the station and learn new concepts. I “ran” the animals
station which introduced habitats and required the students to pair an animal
with the best habitat for it. I think that this activity was very appropriate
for English Language Learners because there were visuals used the entire time.
I made sure to incorporate my Spanish skills whenever possible to ensure that
the students were able to be completely engaged and able to understand. I also
feel that I was able to work on improving my goal of being conscientious of
gentleness towards the students in understanding their needs to hear directions
more than once as well as for words to be paired with pictures of even with
their native language. Reflecting on my station, I feel that my students
performed really well considering that they were mostly familiar with all the
habitats that were mentioned as well as the animals that were used to match
with each habitat. I was very determined to scaffold the students in their turn
to make an animal and habitat match because I knew that prompting the students
would not be enough to ensure their understanding. What this looked like was me
asking simple phrased questions such as, “What kind of weather does the penguin
(pinguino) like?” The student may have responded with, “Cold.” I would then
have replied with, “Which of these habitats or homes would a penguin (pinguino)
love to live in? Remember, the penguin (pinguino) loves to live where it is
cold.” I had to do this multiple times with the students because they may not
have been able to make a choice on their own initially.
Aside from being gentle with the
kindergarteners, the other goal of mine that I feel I was able to work on while
in the classroom was the act of opening up room for the kindergarteners to feel
comfortable and capable of learning despite the language that they spoke. I
feel that I was able to work on this goal by purposefully utilizing Spanish
whenever possible to connect to the students’ previous knowledge of familiar
words. In addition, I made sure to correct behavior that ranged from talking
out of turn to turning around and losing focus. I feel that when one student is
talking out of turn that it limits the other students’ chance of being able to
fully participate, learn, and become engaged in the activity or lesson. I
remember correcting behavior gently in order to gain the trust of the students
as well as for the students to remain comfortable in my presence. I feel that
in doing this, I really served the needs of all of my students because they
were all able to have a turn and feel important.
All in all, I think that the
lesson went really well and was not only engaging for kindergarten students,
but it was also ELL friendly due to the use of graphics and Spanish spoken when
possible. I continue to find that I am able to work towards my goals each week
that I am in the classroom. Specifically, I found that through teaching and
really interacting with the students this time that I was able to focus more on
how I could work on my goals.
That's all for now folks! Until next time!
EXCEEDS: Over character limit.
Included standard used in lesson. Alluded to last blog post about how I felt
about going into the classroom. Included sample questions to ask students
during animal station. Included Spanish word-pinguino- to show as an example of
how I met the students where they are at with their native language.
No comments:
Post a Comment