Last Day

Today was our last day and of course none of the kids wanted us to leave, neither did we. We had a celebration party and the kids and teachers gave us presents as we handed out our gifts. For the kids we wrote them all letters for their post office in the school, our CT was excited and couldn't believe how much the kids would love getting a letter from us in the mail. The students also do not want us to go to Australia to teach, instead they want us to teach them. Well last day of practicum and shortly it will be the last day of this semester!!!

Final blog

I hope everyone has had a great semester and good practicum experiences!

I can't believe we are going to be student teaching in the fall...I AM SO EXCITED!!!!!!!!!!!

I just want to wish everyone good luck this fall semester during their student teaching and hope that everyone has a memorable experience they never forget. Have a great summer!

Scientific Revolution

Whenever a lesson is taught in any subject, it is benefical to integrate it with other subjects in the curriculum. Allowing yourself to make connections across various content areas will benefit your teaching strategies and your students ability to learn the material being taught. The activities we did regarding the Scientific Revolution were a great example on how to integrate science with social studies. A great example of combining these two content areas would be studying the sun, stars and solar system and how some cultures used these elements of science to create clocks and a full year calendar. The possibilites are endless, this is just a small example of how to integrate science with studying various cultures. After having students do the sink and float lesson, you could possible connect that with some famous voyages across the oceans and how these voyages led to changes that forever affected how we live.

Finally Finished

I have finally finished all of my units, my last one was social studies. I thought it went really well, our unit was economics. I had the students create their own candy. I set the activity up as if it were a contest for a new candy for Peretti-Van Mel. For encouragement I was able to get a box of Airheads, so next Wed at the end of the competition when the CT and I decide on a winner we will hand-out the Airheads to the students. My partner is concluding the activity this coming week. We are very excited about the contest between the students and so are they. They have really enjoyed the unit so far.

No more units!

I have taught all of my units! I finished teaching dinosaurs this past Tuesday and the kindergartners loved our activities we did. With teaching dinosaurs we also discussed the history of dinosaurs and everything along the line of dinos you typically would learn in kindergarten. Even though I have no more units to teach I still am teaching lessons in the classroom from my CT. Now it is time to focus on finalizing all the stuff we need to have by the end of the semester. The end is near!!!

Sci. rev.

There are lots of ways to connect social studies to science. Our in class activity was a great! We were introduced to the activity as if it were going to learn a history lesson about the great scientist of the Scientific Revolution. However, we actually got in there after learning sabot the times and conducted some investigations. (I'm kinda bummed I missed out in the balloon thing!) For example, if you wanted to teach your students about medieval architecture, you could have them experiment with similar building materials and have them create their own fortress. I think history is much more interesting and engaging if you can make it come alive, much like we did in class.
Overall- I was mucho impressed with this tactic!

Scientific Revolution

It was fun to have a class of hands-on activities, the kids love being a part of activities and getting a chance to experience different activities. Relating social studies to science was also neat especially discussing the finger and learning about why the finger was preserved (history). I also think though that you, the teacher, needs to look at all activities and not just "think social studies," but to think about how you can relate one activity across the curriculum and across the levels.

Social Studies Connections from science day

We have learned many different ways to cross-reference the curriculum for a particular lesson plan or unit during our Professional 1 & 2 semesters here at Northern Kentucky University. As we learn the real life facts that we will have a very limited amount of time in our classrooms to teach a vast amount of content for multiple subjects, we see just how crucial it is to combine as many subjects in one lesson as we can that will make a difference for our students. I was really surprised that we had a science day in social studies class. Growing up, I was always taught to think of the two subjects as separate. I saw many social studies connections to the science experiments that we did, as well as connections to other subjects, such as math and reading. All of the experiments can easily be connected to math by graphing the results, finding averages, measurements, etc… One way to connect social studies to the science experiments would be to include an economics connection about marketing. Students could think about the materials used for each experiment and how much they cost, how prices are set for each and the profit made from each material, etc… A second social studies connection would be the history of the materials, students could do a small research project on the different types of materials and how they have been used throughout history in different ways. They could also research how that specific material has been improved over time. Student could study what technologies are used to create or improve the materials. It would be really easy to connect all of this to literature, since there are so many great books about the science, social studies, and any topic in the world. I am glad we took the time to think about this since it will be so vital when we are student teaching and teaching in our own classroom some day.

Scientific Revolution

The science experiments were very interesting. I thought using the power point was good, and displaying the dead man's finger is a great way to get the class's attention. Being in collaborative groups and working together was great and very meaningful.

Bloggin

My last unit is next week!!! Then Summer time

Making lessons about Social Studies

There are many ways to cross over the span of several different subjects at one time. In class, we explored and investigated the materials at four science centers. Crossing the pendulum science center into social studies could be done through the discovery of medieval times and the weapons that they used to fight. The catapolts are a very well-known weapon of that time and the way that a catapolt is filled and let go, makes the upwards swinging motion of a catapolt. In the ball center, one could easily talk about the history of different cultures and how they play sports. You could show the students the various types of balls used in the experiment and make connections to the sports that they know and relate it to how various cultures may use something of the same kind for a very different kind of sport and use. For the float and sink center, a teacher could introduce the vikings, romans and greeks and the development of the boats that they used. Then expanding into how naval history has adapted to make things float and how they went from wooden boats to steel boats would really tie in the experiments. Determining how much water it displaces to determine if it will float was something that really took a lot of time for people to figure out! And lastly, in the ballon and straw investigation center, one could introduce the idea of rockets and the space program and how there are different forces needed to get a rocket off the ground. You could also tie in missles used in war and even the ideas of aviation - what kind of force it takes to keep a plane flying. Or the zeplins used by the Germans - blimps - who developed the blimp or hot air ballons could easily be explored in a classroom. As I said before, there are many different ways to use these investigation centers to cross over into Social Studies and "kill two birds with one stone!"

last unit plan

Today was the first day of my last unit I have to do for this semester. The unit is about dinosaurs and all of that fun stuff for kindergartners to learn. Even though this is a science unit if you think Social Studies you can relate the two together. Today we mainly discussed the history of dinosaurs and where the dinosaurs lived and what time period. Kind of interesting and amazing how much little ones know about dinosaurs.

Integrating Lessons

Well the introduction that we began was history. One activity that we did was which ball bounced the most. You could integrate this activity into an economics lesson talking about goods and services. You could also talk about the different types of resources used to make the balls. For the pendulum activity it could be tied into history and where the pendulum came from and how it was used. Then the balloon activity could be integrated with a geography lesson on how people get around in different places and on different types of transportation that is used and which one is the quickest. You could also integrate the balloon activity w/ math also, by having the students calculate the distance from one point to the other and then how long it would take them to get there using different types of transportation.

Bloggin

Does anyone have any ideas what i can put in my port folio for standard 5 and how many things do we need to add this semester?

Wrapping up the Semester

I have finished teaching my math lesson and am getting my social studies lesson ready to teach. Our unit is economics and I have a really fun activity planned for the students. My partner and I are going to have them making their own good and they have to tell what services they will need and to come up with ad for their good. I am very excited about the lesson and to see what the students come up with. As the semester is coming to an end, we are now feeling very comfortable in the our class and with the students as are they. I was worried about this semester at the beginning and until about two weeks ago, but it has turned out to be a pretty good semester in our practicum.

Second Unit - Science

I just finished teaching my science unit on food chains/webs and the energy pyramid. This was definitely my favorite unit to teach. I found this wonderful activity where students make their own food chains and then as a class we linked the food chains together to create a food web. A great visual for the students and they loved creating their own unique food chain. My next unit is Math...YUCK! I personally struggle with Math alot and have a hard time explaining Math to other people. My biggest challenge for myself is to learn new startegies to help me better explain Math concepts to my students (which isn't really happening in Fiske's class). We aren't sure if we will be teaching our 2nd graders or 3rd graders for Math since we are in a split class. I have heard mixed reviews about teaching using "Everday Math". Do any of you think it is a good program?

I can't wait to see everyone's Math Centers, Lindsey and I are doing 3-D geometry, I think we have a really fun and engaging center for 5th graders. Does anyone know what school we are doing the Math Centers at? Just curious.

We have a student who is moving to Europe in two weeks, she is going to live in Slovakia. I can't imagine making such a huge move (across the Atlantic Ocean) at age 8. I would of been nervous and scared, but she is excited about it. She had Lindsey and I sign a shirt last week, she had everyone in her class sign it to remember them by. She is a bright young girl, she will do really well over there. We also just had a student who spent her sping break skiing in Vale, Colorado and winning medals. She is in 2nd grade also. Another student was just diagnosed with Juvenile Diabetes. To say the least it has been an interesting past week or two. I hope everyone else has exciting students like we do.

Good Luck to anyone teaching this week!