June 12, 2013

Science Centres and Fun!

Caitlin Biggins

Today my class was scheduled to have the science visitor that I had helped out in the other classrooms. I was surprised by the parent volunteers that arrived to help out for the morning! I was helping out in the other grade one classrooms because there were not enough parent volunteers, but in this class there was enough for every centre, and I was able to walk around and really see the mechanics of the entire classroom at work, rather than just focusing on one group. I really appreciated this breather, because I was able to see centres in an entirely different light. I was a little disappointed I didnt get to show off the group of students that I have been working with to my peers, but very happy to see a lot of parent involvement. I have realized that the parent-teacher relationship and communication is a really important aspect of a childs learning, especially at a young age like in grade one. We chatted about how to get parents organized for something like this. I dont think I mentioned that I like to give them as much notice as I can too seems to help. The day started out with a hiccup in the hallways when I saw the neighboring grade one teacher with a student who looked upset. After the student went to go into her classroom, the teacher told me the student saw her dog get run over this morning right before school. My heart broke for the student, and again I was reminded that there are so many factors that go into reading the behavior of students in order to have a successful and structured classroom. This teacher became the therapist, priest and comfort to the poor child. I know that an experience like that can really damage a child, and having adults who can support you, being able to feel safe and having a sense of belonging in a school really helped that student through the day. I saw her at recess and there were no tears! And that is amazing knowing how sensitive that little girl is. The students have a normal routine of coming into class, putting out their agendas, and sitting at their desks when they arrive at school, but because the centres were set up on their tables, they were asked sit on the carpet instead. Once all of the students had arrived and were sitting on the carpet, my TA asked Thumbs up if you know why we are on the carpet today, Id like you to whisper to your elbow buddy what you think is going on. This seems to be a less boisterous way of getting students in the mind-set of what they are going to be asked to do today. By starting off with thumbs up, and not hands up, or shout out, it is a quiet, small gesture that works might work just right for the children who are already anxious or excited because of the change. The elbow buddy, they were asked to whisper to is another example of this, I think my TA wanted the students to be excited about what they would get to do today, but wanted to set a tone tight away of calm and inside voices. You got it! We have also spoken about how centers/stations can be great but they take a lot of initial rule setting and practice at the beginning. While the Scientist visitor was getting her experiments ready, the students were gathered on the carpet having a discussion about the beans they had planted and put in the window last week. They have been charting the progress of their bean plants almost hourly, and it is always an exciting time in the grade one class when

they get to compare and contrast their plants. They were asked to make predictions yesterday about the way their plants would lean if they turned them toward/away from the sunlight, and the students were asked to give a thumbs up if they thought there were some good guesses from yesterday. Again, the students were able to evaluate their own predictions, and have a controlled class discussion while they waited to begin the fun centres. When the scientist visitor was ready to start, one of the students asked why the visitor didnt look like a scientist. The student thought that scientists wore white lab coats all of the time, which I thought was pretty cute. Some of the students started discussing their predictions as to what they thought the scientist would look like, and their predictions were really funny. One student said she thought the scientist would be a boy. I thought this was a really interesting statement for a grade one to make, because we have discussed in my Education 2500 class the subjects that males tend to be better at, and the subjects where females excel. I wonder if this is really the case for students of this generation. I would be interested to hear if the boy students are more inclined to liking science and math, and the female students were more excited about doing language arts. That is pretty much the way it is in my room. When the class was ready to be split into groups, I noticed that my TA specifically picked out what students would be in groups. It really shows how well my TA knows her class, because she is able to create working groups made up of a mixture of students who all have different strengths. Some students do not work well together, and knowing your students well enough to see this saves my TA a lot of headaches I think. This year I could make up the groups on the spot. Often I do it ahead of time & sometimes even print the groups on the board. While the students were rotating through the centres I was able to circulate around the room and see the parts rest of the science project that I hadnt had the opportunity to see before. It was really neat to see the children learning with such a wide variety of hands-on activities. I think when I become a teacher, this experience will have given me a lot of resources and strategies for centres, and activities. It started to rain, so it was another indoor recess, and I read a book to the students on the carpet. Reading books to the children is one of my favorite things to do, so I was really happy they were all in the mood to hear a story. I know that indoor recess can be hard on the children, but the students who needed to get up and go for a walk in the hallway, or go and get a drink were able to come and go as their behavior indicated they needed to. I think that my class was by far the best behaved for the scientist, and also the most clever even though I might be a little biased. Me too! But they are a great group of kids! This is the kind of class that allows you to actually teach most of the time! It is so refreshing to not always have to be policeman and be constantly dealing with discipline problems.