Clinical Site Science Lesson

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