At my clinical Professional Development
Study student teaching site, I taught a science lesson on weather. For this
lesson I read the students a book, showed them a science experiment, and had
them complete a large group activity on the topic of weather. My kindergarten class
has twenty-three students. Among these students there are some English Language
Learners, some with speech services, some receiving intervention services, and
one with an Individualized Education Plan. This kindergarten class makes up a
group of very diverse learners. They all combine to create one enthusiastic
group of kindergarteners. They all have a different type of learning hat works
best for them, and I attempted to meet many of these throughout my weather
lesson. I used many different teaching methods and different forms of
presenting the materials.
I felt that
my lesson had multiple strengths. The first strength was my attention getter. I
created a snowstorm in a jar to go along with the topic of weather. The students
were very intrigued by it and listened closely for the rest of my lesson.
Another strength of my lesson was the book I chose as well as the manner in
which I read it. I read “The Snowy Day” to the students. I also included some
comprehension questions during the reading to make it an interactive read
aloud. This way I could be sure that the students were really listening to the
story. The students were eager to answer the questions and even applauded the
book when I finished reading. The final strength I saw in my lesson was the use
of an interactive SMART Board activity. In this activity the weatherman told
the students what the weather would be like for that day. The students then had
the job of dressing the bear in the appropriate clothing based on the weather
forecast. Each student got the opportunity to come up to the board and help the
bear by giving him one item he may need for his day cased on the weather.
Although I
do feel that my lesson went very well overall, there is one area that I feel I
could have improved in. While I did let each student have an interactive part
during the SMART Board lesson, when it wasn’t a child’s turn they seemed to get
bored and restless. I attempted to ask the whole class questioned based off of
the items we were giving the bears, however it only seemed to get the attention
of a couple of the students. Next time I would want to plan ahead for this
potential problem. It is very important to keep all of the students engaged
throughout the entire lesson. One idea to fix this problem would be to put the
student sin small groups ad give each group a type of weather to focus on. They
could then brainstorm ideas of how to dress the bear and what items to give
him. Then I could have one small group come up at a time to dress the bear and
explain to the rest of the class why they chose those particular items. This
way all of the students would be involved and there would be less down time for
each individual student, cutting down on the restlessness of the majority of
the students.
Like I
stated before, there were a few things that really got the students’ attention
during the lesson. The first thing that got the student’s attention was the use
of the attention getter. The students were really interested in the snowstorm
in a jar and were excited to continue the lesson. They were also very engaged
during the interactive read aloud. They seemed to really like the story and
being able to answer questions throughout the reading of the story. The
students also showed a great interest in completing the SMART Board activity
dressing the bear. Each student wanted to share their input on what the bear
should wear. After all of the students had helped dress the bear they had the
opportunity to draw a picture of themselves doing their favorite winter
activity. They were very excited to draw their favorite winter activity and
share it with the class.
Overall
there wasn’t much knowledge I needed to know before teaching this lesson. I
needed to know the types of weather that frequent the area the students live
in. I also needed to be aware of the types of items we would need with us
during the different types of weather. Once I decided to use the snowstorm in a
jar as an attention getter I then needed to find the information on how to
create one. I decided to begin with the snowstorm in a jar to get the students’
attention and get their minds thinking about the topic we were about to discuss
as a class. I then decided to continue the lesson with the book “The Snowy
Day”. I hoped that the use of the story would only further the students’
thinking on the topic of weather. I then continued with the SMART Board
activity to get the whole group thinking and working on what items are needed in
different types of weather. I completed with a drawing activity to let the
students reflect on what they had learned in the lesson.
The
students were very engaged during the snowstorm in a jar and were curious at
how I had created it. The students then were very engaged in the read aloud of “The
Snowy Day” and were eager to answer the questions throughout the book. They
seemed to really know about winter and the activities that occur during the
season. While completing the SMART Board activity, most of the students were
able to correctly dress the bear based on the weather being referenced. They
also were very knowledgeable about some of the activities that are common
during the winter months.
Exceeds: My CT has a copy of the lesson plan; I also set out
additional books on the topic for the students to explore during the rest of
the week
