last week was my final week teaching at hawlemont. i've taken a while to write this post because i'm still trying to process everything from the week...
here's a rundown:
MONDAY
a planning day, except this day was more exciting because 8 more corps members moved in over the weekend to be joining us for the trail work portion of the internship. while we were planning our hearts out, they were getting orientation to the site. hooray new friends!
TUESDAY
it was a weird day. we started the morning in 6th grade. that went well! it was a good conclusion to our time with them. then we had a lot of downtime because our 4th grade lesson was rescheduled due to the massachusetts standardized exams. our only other lesson that day was with 5th grade. we ended up just playing a bunch of games with them. it was great!
WEDNESDAY
a crazy busy day! we began our morning in preschool. we did some water experiments...they were okay...but the highlight was getting hugs from all of the preschoolers. they are ADORABLE! then we rushed over to kindergarten for our final lesson on oobleck. it is amazing how amazed kids get over cornstarch and water mixed together. i mean, i love oobleck. i could play with it all day...it's fascinating!! a great lesson to end our time!
then, we rushed (yet again) over to 4th grade to finish working on the rain gauge guidebook. the guidebook came together SO well! i am still impressed with how great all of the pages look. also, it was great to see that the students are really excited to keep measuring all of the rain gauge data! i love service learning : )
we enjoyed lunch with 3rd and 4th grade and had fun at recess. i hung around with a kindergartner most of the time. we searched for lost toy monster trucks...which was basically and excuse to run around the playground and all over the structure. kids are amazing.
in the afternoon, we popped back into 4th grade to do some wrap up activities and then bounced over to 2nd grade to finish the river project. that, too, came together well! i feel like the class didn't really get much from our lessons, but they really loved us. we received a bunch of gifts and notes from them. it was great! also...caleb and i both received LOTS of hugs. that was awesome.
Tuesday, March 30, 2010
Thursday, March 18, 2010
"i wish today was tuesday".
that was a quote from a 4th grader today (thursday). we see that class on tuesday...that made me feel great! this week has just been great for kid quotes. here are some of the highlights in kid quotes...
"thanks for teaching us all of this cool stuff because before i didn't know what a water cycle was, but now i do" (3rd grader).
"i wish you could come over to my house" (whispered by a 1st grader).
"thermometer!" (shouted by a kindergartner).
"can you come over to my house on my birthday?" (preschooler).
so wonderful!
MONDAY
a planning day. i recall being rather tired...and it rained all day.
TUESDAY
a GORGEOUS day outside...6th grade lesson analyzing their transportation logs went well. 6th graders don't know percents very well...at least that's what i learned. i think they enjoyed it. then we work on the rain gauge guidebook with 4th grade. that went much more smoothly. some of the kids are making some great progress! the others are doing a very focused job.
after lunch we headed over to 3rd grade to work on their water cycle puppet shows since we didn't have much time last week. we gave them a graphic organizer so they could organize the plot, the characters and the types of puppets they would make. i don't know if it was that or just a better facilitation of the lesson, but every group wrote their show and completed their puppets in that time!
we rounded out the day with 5th grade science jeopardy! they loved it! i think they were almost too engaged. we had to remind them a few times to sit down in their seats. i was surprised at how much they retained over the past few months. very refreshing!
WEDNESDAY
another beautiful day. we started off in preschool. we had a slightly hectic activity where we traced their bodies on big paper and had them color in 7 of 10 spaces we put on them (to show that our body is 70% water). i forgot to explain the whole 70% thing when i was introducing the activity, whoops! live and learn...we also made a tornado maker from some plastic bottles and a tornado sleeve. one of the kids kept putting it in his cubby. it was hilarious. we then made our way to kindergarten...where we had to try to figure out why the sugar crystals didn't work...and then had them draw on a puzzle piece their favorite activity. some of them just drew squares. some of them drew bees (we didn't teach them about bees). but they seemed to have fun...
gym class with william (kids always cry in the class...), lunch, recess.
we finished the day with our 2nd grade river habitat projects. they just worked on decorating their river pieces with all of the things their animals need to survive. they are looking great! i'm so excited to see them completed.
"thanks for teaching us all of this cool stuff because before i didn't know what a water cycle was, but now i do" (3rd grader).
"i wish you could come over to my house" (whispered by a 1st grader).
"thermometer!" (shouted by a kindergartner).
"can you come over to my house on my birthday?" (preschooler).
so wonderful!
MONDAY
a planning day. i recall being rather tired...and it rained all day.
TUESDAY
a GORGEOUS day outside...6th grade lesson analyzing their transportation logs went well. 6th graders don't know percents very well...at least that's what i learned. i think they enjoyed it. then we work on the rain gauge guidebook with 4th grade. that went much more smoothly. some of the kids are making some great progress! the others are doing a very focused job.
after lunch we headed over to 3rd grade to work on their water cycle puppet shows since we didn't have much time last week. we gave them a graphic organizer so they could organize the plot, the characters and the types of puppets they would make. i don't know if it was that or just a better facilitation of the lesson, but every group wrote their show and completed their puppets in that time!
we rounded out the day with 5th grade science jeopardy! they loved it! i think they were almost too engaged. we had to remind them a few times to sit down in their seats. i was surprised at how much they retained over the past few months. very refreshing!
WEDNESDAY
another beautiful day. we started off in preschool. we had a slightly hectic activity where we traced their bodies on big paper and had them color in 7 of 10 spaces we put on them (to show that our body is 70% water). i forgot to explain the whole 70% thing when i was introducing the activity, whoops! live and learn...we also made a tornado maker from some plastic bottles and a tornado sleeve. one of the kids kept putting it in his cubby. it was hilarious. we then made our way to kindergarten...where we had to try to figure out why the sugar crystals didn't work...and then had them draw on a puzzle piece their favorite activity. some of them just drew squares. some of them drew bees (we didn't teach them about bees). but they seemed to have fun...
gym class with william (kids always cry in the class...), lunch, recess.
we finished the day with our 2nd grade river habitat projects. they just worked on decorating their river pieces with all of the things their animals need to survive. they are looking great! i'm so excited to see them completed.
Saturday, March 13, 2010
a kindergartner is better than me at basketball.
yup. true statement. one of the kindergartners kicked my tushy at basketball during recess this week. the kid is half my height, one quarter my age, but makes baskets like a pro. not fair!
he also invited me over to his house. that was adorable.
anyway, what a busy week. there was a mix of wonderful moments, stressful moments, tension-filled moments, and sad moments...
MONDAY
a planning day as usual. fairly uneventful.
TUESDAY
we arrived early as usual. last week i felt like we weren't organized the whole week, so i decided to finish the small bits of planning we had to do and print out all of our lesson plans for the week. my overachieving self is starting to make a comeback. we then headed to 6th grade. we discussed more about transportation and looked at transportation systems. we gave them all transportation logs to keep track of their use of transportation over the week. that should be interesting to look at.
then we had a break...i can't remember what we did...
next came our lesson with 4th grade. we continued learning about the rain gauge and had them form groups to start making a guidebook on how to use the rain gauge. the making of the guidebook will be interesting...i still don't know if i have a clear vision on what it's going to end up looking like (or whether we'll be able to complete it in our time left at the school).
after lunch, we enjoyed the craziness that is 1st grade art class. they painted self portraits that had sculpted out of clay a while back. then they proceeded to use WAY too much construction paper to make little cutout hearts. i swear...if the amount of hearts that class cuts out in one class period is an indicator of how much love they have for eachother...there is a LOT of love going on...
our 5th grade class brought episode 2 of who wants to be a meteorologist? again, a solid lesson. at the end there was some confusion over the greenhouse effect and global warming (kids were asking if greenhouses were really bad), so we'll have to clear that up next week...
after school, i helped with the drama club. that never ceases to be crazy.
he also invited me over to his house. that was adorable.
anyway, what a busy week. there was a mix of wonderful moments, stressful moments, tension-filled moments, and sad moments...
MONDAY
a planning day as usual. fairly uneventful.
TUESDAY
we arrived early as usual. last week i felt like we weren't organized the whole week, so i decided to finish the small bits of planning we had to do and print out all of our lesson plans for the week. my overachieving self is starting to make a comeback. we then headed to 6th grade. we discussed more about transportation and looked at transportation systems. we gave them all transportation logs to keep track of their use of transportation over the week. that should be interesting to look at.
then we had a break...i can't remember what we did...
next came our lesson with 4th grade. we continued learning about the rain gauge and had them form groups to start making a guidebook on how to use the rain gauge. the making of the guidebook will be interesting...i still don't know if i have a clear vision on what it's going to end up looking like (or whether we'll be able to complete it in our time left at the school).
after lunch, we enjoyed the craziness that is 1st grade art class. they painted self portraits that had sculpted out of clay a while back. then they proceeded to use WAY too much construction paper to make little cutout hearts. i swear...if the amount of hearts that class cuts out in one class period is an indicator of how much love they have for eachother...there is a LOT of love going on...
our 5th grade class brought episode 2 of who wants to be a meteorologist? again, a solid lesson. at the end there was some confusion over the greenhouse effect and global warming (kids were asking if greenhouses were really bad), so we'll have to clear that up next week...
after school, i helped with the drama club. that never ceases to be crazy.
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