I didn't realize that today was our second to last soil lesson! I was sure we had at least two more. I'm a little disappointed our time with our fun third grade class will be ending. I feel as though we haven't covered enough to make it all come together. Hopefully Mrs K can finish up the unit without us!I left the lesson today feeling slightly frazzled, but according to our observer we did a good job! That was a relief to hear. We didn't get to all of this things on our lesson plan, which is the first time that has happened to us. Also the activity didn't go exactly as I had pictured it. We were planting cucumber seeds into clear plastic tubes, so when the seeds start to grow we will be able to see the root growth. At one point they had to pour sand clay and humus samples into test tubes, using folded pieces of paper as funnels, and their was a sort of tricky process for them. To be honest I can't think of another way to have made it easier/ go any smoother.
Our Process skill forces for this week was technology and engineering. The part of the lesson that we didn't get to was going to assign with the engineering frameworks, so hopefully we'll get one more shot at covering that next week!
Over all, Today was a good lesson. Hopefully some seeds start to grow before our last visit next week!
Here's a little holiday-ish joke for you...
What do you get if you divide the circumference
of a pumpkin by its diameter?
of a pumpkin by its diameter?
Pumpkin pi.
hehe:)
Alyssa - I have had that feeling "This is harder for them than I thought but don't know how to make it easier." Your cucumber experiment sounds really interesting.
ReplyDeleteI just realized that you one first place in an "Invention Convention, " like we talked about today. So neat!
Alyssa,
ReplyDeletePlanting cucumber seeds sounds so much fun. I am glad we have these blogs to see what everyone is up to. It would have been fun if we could have rotated and seen some of each other's lessons in action. I bet the students loved working with the plants. I had encountered some similar "frazzled" moments you mentioned. It is hard to fit such large units into only seven sessions. I wish we could have stayed with these students all year. They are awesome. Keep up the good work!
I am sure your lesson went fine, Alyssa! Sounds like a very fun activity, i want to grow cucumbers! Engineering and technology seems to be a very hard topic to cover, unless your lesson is fully developed around doing specifically engineering. I can't believe next week is out last week either; it all went by so fast!!
ReplyDeleteThe cucumber planting sounds like fun. I feel like Sarah and I are going until the very last minute of class trying to make sure we get everything in. It's hard to plan an exact time for every activity. You can't always control what happens. Our teaching time has gone quickly. I'm sure your students will miss you when you are gone!
ReplyDeleteHi Ms. Hall, I think your explanation of this week's lesson was spot on- it didn't seem to be going so well at some points, but then at the end I was pretty comfortable with what we were able to accomplish. I think the activity itself was simply too difficult for their age group. Me, you, and Dr. Gilmore were even having trouble pouring the soil samples into the test tubes, so I think expecting that the students could do this on their own was far fetched! I thought we did a good job explaining what needed to be done, and all of the students were quiet and paying attention when we were explaining the directions, so we can't really blame ourselves for the trouble they were having. I think I finally made it through an entire lesson without calling you Alyssa instead of Ms. Hall haha, but great job teaching this week! You did an awesome job answering the students' questions about roots, and the two of us are clearly getting more comfortable every week, so keep up the good work!
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