Intern Experience Week #15

This past week at my PDS has been very eventful. We experiences 2 snow days on Monday and Tuesday and then a 2 hour delay on Wednesday. This was my first time being able to see how snow days can effect planning and the behaviors of students. Needless to say it was a crazy week! When the week started on Wednesday and the students and teachers came back it was busy. The schedule was changed because of the delay and teachers also lost their planning. It was difficult to change lessons around in a short amount of time because I could not do what I originally planned since we missed the two previous days. Also the students were very talkative and full of energy seeing that they had a four day weekend so I had to make sure that I planned a very structured day to keep behavior problems down. I decided to have a review day of the material from the week before since we had just started a difficult unit on matter and energy. I knew the students probably forgot a lot of important information from the week before that they would need for this weeks activity. We were also moving into density so it was important that they had a concrete background on the idea of atoms, mass, and volume. We worked on important concepts from the chapter and then discussed important ideas and then answered any misconceptions that students had. Overall, I felt that the day went as well as it could. I had a lot of trouble with behavior, talking mostly, but I felt like it couldn't really be avoided because of the snow days.
This weeks blog is a lot shorter then usual and that's because of the lack of time in my PDS. I am getting excited to be done teaching soon, the 5 am wake ups are not getting any easier. But I really am going to miss my students. I feel like I have a real relationship with my students now and I believe I also have finally found my teaching style, for this particular subject and grade level. I also have learned a lot about myself as an educator and the type of teacher I want to be. I have really enjoyed my time in the 5th grade. I think that through all of my experiences in elementary school and middle, that I connect more with old aged students. I loved my time in 5th grade and middle school. I also really enjoy being in the special education classroom and I can't want to be able to spend more time in there.

Intern Experience Week #14

My internship at my PDS is coming to an end, but the experiences are never ending. My mentor teaching teaches social studies and science to 5th grade students. I have been teaching a unit on the Civil War since I started at my PDS and just finished it before thanksgiving break. Now since returning from the holiday break we have started a unit on matter and energy. This is a whole new experience for me because I have only taught science in a kindergarten classroom therefore, the concepts I will be teaching are a lot more complex. I have had to spend a lot of time reteaching myself about atoms and molecules and everything that has to deal with matter and energy. In order to feel more comfortable about teaching these concepts I watched my mentor teach for a day so I could get an idea of how he presents the material. After observing his teaching for a day I took over this past Tuesday and started teaching science. It has been a lot easier then I had anticipated. I think that is because I have my own type of teaching style now so I just took my approach in social studies to science, but now I am working into my lessons more hands on activities.
Today we actually build molecules. I worked with students on building their knowledge about atoms and molecules and using the periodic table on Tuesday. Then we reviewed the information in class today before we started to build our molecules. The students built molecules with clay and toothpicks and I modeled a few different types of molecule being built in order for them to have a visual on how to actually structure them correctly.
I ran into some difficulty when I was having the students use their periodic table to identify what symbols in the molecular formulas, represented the atoms on the table. The students were confusing the number on the periodic table which represents the element or atoms protons in that elements nucleus with the number of that actual atom needed to create the molecule. Therefore a discussion was held to help students identify the number of atoms needed in order to build the different molecules I had listed for them to try. I also gave students an option building a few more complex molecules which a lot took advantage of doing.