Observation #1

I didn't realize how much I really missed being in my 488 field placement until this week when I went back to the school to observe. It was also beyond rewarding when my teaching partner (TP) and I walked into the room, and Student M.'s face lit up! He said with excitement "you guys are back!" and really did seem thrilled. It was great for me and TP to see that he had appreciated having us in the classroom, and to know we had been missed! Upon arrival we settled back into our usual seats, chatted briefly with Ms. K, and observed as she taught science.

The day's lesson was on weathering, and was part of a unit on soil. The teacher talked about how soil was formed, explaininig that rocks slowly wear down over millions and millions of years. The main activity involved having students sit at their table groups and shake a plastic easter egg that had a sugar cube inside. After each student had shaken the egg several times, they opened it and looked at the way the cube had changed. It's pointed edges had become smooth, and some of the sugar had separated into particles. Ms. K talked about how rocks go through a similar process. After the experiment, the students drew results on a data sheet, they recorded a pictoral representation of the weathering process and explained how the sugar cube experiment related. This is the typical method used for teaching science in this classroom: a topic is introduced and discussed briefly, the kids engage in a hands on activity to further develop their knowledge and understanding, and then they do some type of writing in their notebooks to pull the concepts together. This seems to work well for this particular group of kids (who have been identified as high level in science).

Twice over the course of the morning, Ms. K had to talk to the students of the importance of organization to their success as 3rd graders. This was done once in the context of field trips (bringing back forms is always a struggle for some children) and then also with keeping messy desks/notebooks/etc. Our teacher and her classroom are incredibly organized, and it seems as though she was making an effort to transfer this to the children in her classroom.

Overall, not much seemed to have changed since we had last visited the classroom in the fall. There were still some instances of students talking or not paying attention, but they were, on the whole, very well behaved. I am excited to continue to visit and for TP and I to teach our unit later in the semester!!