...and it has definitely been a busy week.
MONDAY
monday found us lesson planning for some events on friday (even though i would end up snowshoeing and clearing trails all day at some land trust properties) and lesson planning for the week. caleb and i seemed to zoom through everything and even made prototypes for our water molecule hats (to be explained later).
TUESDAY
on tuesday morning, we had fun scraping a thick layer of ice off the van before we even left the forest. getting down the driveway was also quite interesting...once we got to school, caleb and i ran around getting some last minute tasks done. we taught a lesson in 6th grade on ethical reasoning with environmental issues. we first asked them what they knew about global environmental issues and what they wanted to know (KWL assessment: know, want to know, and fill in what they learned after the lesson or unit). at first, they seemed unsure of what they wanted to learn much about environmental issues. after the KWL, we split the class into groups to discuss environmental dilemmas. the groups worked very well! since the class enjoys talking in general, organized discussion was perfect. after the students discussed their dilemmas for about 20 minutes, we brought the class back together to debrief and see what they gained from the discussion. from the responses, the students displayed a growing curiosity about the complexity of environmental issues. one student even asked, "does this problem really happen?". others appeared rather shocked that finding solutions to these dilemmas can be complicated and nuanced. caleb and i are very excited for our next lesson with them!!
we then helped with 1st grade with reading...they have so much energy...
our 4th grade lesson on properties of water went so well! the students are curious about water and seemed to be fully engaged in learning about properties of matter and the amazing qualities of water. they loved making water molecule hats and even wore them to lunch!
during 1st grade art class, i got hit by the tired bus...and the kids were rowdy. one didn't want to cut out his coyote at all...i tried to use some of the responsive classroom language with him, but it didn't work.
afterward, we headed to 5th grade. half of the kids left for choir soon after our name game, but the small class was great. we played lots of games (paperclip game, seismologist, mechanic's coming). they had played most of the games in some form or another before, but they seemed to love our versions!!
