Planets and Computers

I worked with two classmates to develop and present a condensed lesson on planets.  It was designed for grade 3 students and needed to involve technology in a way that enriched the lesson.  We used a youtube video clip, a smart board interactive component and the use of a website during the lesson.  The URL for the website is http://www.sunaeon.com/#/solarsystem/.  We got the “students” (our classmates) to come to the front of the classroom and sit on the carpet.  We played a Timon and Pumba clip from The Lion King where Timon and Pumba discuss the stars and wonder what they are made up of.  We then had the students discuss what they thought the stars were made of and then revealed that Pumba was right, that stars are big burning balls of gas.  That led to talking about our star and the planets in our solar system.  We talked about the orbit and rotation of the planets, drew what this looked like on the smart board and them used some student volunteers to show what a planet looks like orbiting around the sun.  We showed the students how to use the Suneon website to gather information about all of the planets and then let them loose on the computers to find the answers to their “ticket out the door,” which was a scavenger hunt of information that could be found in the website.  After a few minutes to complete their scavenger hunt the students came back to the front where they used the smart board to name each of the planets correctly to finish the lesson.

I believe the lesson was successful.  We worked as a teaching team effectively and used different ways of teaching to involve the different kinds of learners in the classroom.  Our lesson used technology in an effective way that could not have been replicated without the technology.  It allowed the students a chance to get up and move to and from their computers and during the orbit activity.  It involved aspects that would appeal to kinesthetic learners, auditory learners, and visual learners.  I would absolutely use this lesson plan in a real life teaching situation.  We have shared our lesson plan on our class website so that our classmates can use it too! 

Teaching Standards: K1, K2, K4, K5, P1, P3, C1, C2

Berry Inspirational

I know this is from a while back, but this was the first time that I really felt like I could, in fact, one day be a teacher and love it. The summer before last I had the opportunity to lead 120 campers between the ages of 7 and 10 in a one hour nature hike near the summer camp that I grew up going to.  I led two tours a day for five days, so I had twelve children and two cabin leaders for each hike.   I was given a booklet that contained pictures and facts about some of the plants along the trail, some of the history of the land and other random nature facts.  Along our walk, we stopped at certain “artifacts” and talked about them.  I chose a camper to read each page (only about two sentences) and then I added on some extra interesting facts about what we were looking at.  Two of the “artifacts” were types of berries.  When we got to the berries, we talked about how some berries are good to eat and some berries will make you very sick.   Because there were 120 campers and all of their cabin leaders I asked each person to only take one of each berry so that there would be enough for everyone and we could leave some for the wild animals.  We tried thimble berries and huckleberries.  

            Every hike was a success.  More than one hundred of the campers said that they learned something new and most of them had never tried either of the berries before.  I was confident in the information that I was teaching and by the second hike I did not need to look at the little book whatsoever.  Because we were walking while we were learning and the “artifacts” were fairly interesting, even the campers who had struggled with behavior during other aspects of the camp were able to be successful during the hike.   Everyone participated in reading the booklet out loud and no one ran off.  This experience helped me to see that I do have the enthusiasm and the passion to teach children. 

Teaching Standards: K1, C1