Jenna OMalley

10/28/2013

SUMMARIZE
For the center time activities for today I made sure the library was stocked with books about pumpkins. To do so, I checked out books from the UIUC library and brought them in for the students. I introduced the pumpkin literature by reading aloud a pumpkin story at large group time and then let the students know that during center time they could read the stories and record how they felt about the stories in their journal, which was the goal of this lesson. During center time, the students went up to the shelves and chose books that interested them. They either looked at the pictures by themselves or with a partner and came up with stories to go along with the pictures or asked a teacher to read the stories to them. Some students drew pictures representing the books in their journal.

REFLECT
I believe that the children were willing and excited to read about pumpkins during their free center time because pumpkins is a topic they are now familiar with and have done several activities relating to pumpkins. I could tell the students were engaged in this activity because they were given the choice to read books on pumpkins or play as they usually do at center time and they made the choice to read and investigate the pumpkin stories. If I was to do this activity again I would have the pumpkin stories at their own center with an adult there to read the stories or look at the pictures with the children being sure to point out specific learning opportunities from the story such as growth cycle, and other characteristics of pumpkins in order to incorporate more project vocabulary with the students.

EVALUATE
The students made an effort to become more familiar with pumpkins by actively seeking out appropriate information from stories and pictures. I was happy with the amount of children who decided to pursue the literature option during free center play, especially because the students had no explicit directions to choose books and read them. Furthermore, more students decided to represent their knowledge through pictures in their journal than I had anticipated. I was excited to see so many students willing to use their free time to investigate literature on pumpkins. The students were grabbing books, pointing to pictures, and announcing look! get this one common lets read this to each other.

Jenna OMalley

10/29/2013

SUMMARIZE
The goal of this activity was to get the students to recognize the difference in sizes of pumpkins by having them measure the circumference of their pumpkin using string then compare the lengths of strings collected from the students. The shorter strings represented smaller pumpkins while the larger pumpkins had longer string. During this small group activity I called 2 or 3 students over at a time to measure their pumpkin. During this time I explained to the students that we were measuring our pumpkin with string then helped them to wrap their string around the center of their pumpkin and cut the string at the appropriate ending mark.

REFLECT
I believe the success of this particular activity was largely due to the fact that this was a familiar activity to the students as they did this with apples before. Furthermore, I believe that getting to see a size representation of their own pumpkin through the use of the string was exciting for them. They were able to locate their string in reference to the rest of the class and say hey mine is bigger than yours or look, mines the smallest pumpkin because my string is so short. I think this was an appropriate activity with realistic expectations that the students would be able to successfully measure their pumpkins with string and acknowledge how big their pumpkins were in reference to the rest of the class because it was a repeated activity and therefore the students had prior knowledge of the expectations. Furthermore, they were able to make connections to old knowledge gained from this activity and apply it to the new resourcesthe pumpkins.

EVALUATE
The children were able to complete this activity for the most part independently, although some students did need assistance holding the string still as they wrapped it around the round base. Furthermore, the students were able to recognize this process of measuring an object as they did this activity with apples and string a few weeks before, saying things like hey I know how to do this and I remember this from the apples! I reasonably concluded that the students were able to successfully meet the goal of this activity because they were able to verbalize their understanding of the differences in length between the longer and shorter string lengths and discuss what the length differences meant in terms of pumpkin sizes.

Jenna OMalley

10/30/2013

SUMMARIZE
Today the students were able to watch as Miss Jami measured a pumpkin in front of the class at large group time. The goal of this activity was to show students that there is multiple ways of measuring an object. In this particular measuring activity Miss Jami showed how tall and how wide the pumpkin was using a ruler. She modeled holding the ruler next to the pumpkin to show the height and then across the pumpkin to show the width. During this activity I prompted the students to look as Miss Jami was measuring and also asked relevant questions such as is the pumpkin taller or wider and how tall is the pumpkin, what number is on the ruler. During this activity the students were observers.

REFLECT
I believe this activity was partially successful because yes, the students were able to complete the goals of recognizing different methods of measuring objects; however, the students were not able to be active investigators in this particular activity. Rather, they were observers and watched the activity be completed by the teacher, answering questions when prompted. If I was to complete this activity again I would perform the measuring in small groups and have the children hold the ruler themselves and mark off how tall and how wide the pumpkin was. I would also have them record their findings in their journal. I feel that by doing this I can effectively engage their minds and bodies and also have them recall what they learned by having them rephrase the activity in their own means in their journal.

EVALUATE
I believe this activity was successful because the students were able to recognize the difference in size between the height and width of the pumpkin. They were able to clearly identify that the pumpkin was taller than it was long. Furthermore, they were able to verbalize that the pumpkin was 13 inches tall and 7 inches wide. The children appeared interested in the activity because their body language suggested that they wanted to become more engaged as multiple students were moving around in their seat, leaning forward, and sitting up on their knees craning their neck to get a better view of the measuring.

Jenna OMalley

10/31/2013

SUMMARIZE
Using the measurements from the activity the day prior, I created pumpkins with the dimensions found from measuring. In this activity, I had the students stand against the wall of stacked pumpkins and marked off their height in relation to the stacked pumpkins. I then had them count how many pumpkins tall they were. The students were able to correctly recall how many pumpkins tall they were by looking at the wall and counting up in relation to their marked off height. The goal of this activity was to have students realize their measurements in relation to others and recognize the differences between each students height measurements in pumpkins.

REFLECT
I believe the activity was successful because it was something novel for the studentsmeasuring their height in pumpkins. Furthermore, I think that the representation of each of the individual students on the wall of pumpkins was something they looked forward to seeing. I believe that making comparisons between their height and the height of their classmates was an important learning opportunity for the students as they were able to graphically see measurements and analyze the meaning of these representations (i.e. Im taller than her, hes the shortest, etc.) If I was to do this activity again I would spend more time discussing traditional ways of measuring height (i.e. inches and feet). I think by giving the students this information I would not only increase their knowledge base of measuring tools but also provide them with a reference to how tall they actually are other than 4 and a half pumpkins tall.

EVALUATE
The students seemed interested in this activity as multiple students kept coming up to the wall saying measure me next, I want to see how tall I am and look, there I am Im 4 and a half pumpkins tall. I believe this was an exciting activity for the students because they were able to see their own personal height in pumpkins as well as their height in relation to the height of the other students in the class. Furthermore, this activity was enticing to the students as many, if not all of the students, were measured by height using pumpkins for the first time. Using objects to measure their height instead of inches or feet was a new concept for them and something they were proud to announce, saying hey look, Im almost 5 pumpkins tall!

Jenna OMalley

11/01/2013

SUMMARIZE
During todays large group time I had the students observe a sink or float activity in which I took down student hypothesis on whether or not small, medium, and large pumpkins would sink or float. During the activity I conducted the experiment, prompting students to make a prediction on which sized pumpkins would sink or float and then placed the pumpkins in the water and prompted explanations as to whether they sank or floated., which was the goal of the lesson to have students form and test hypothesis. The students observed the experiment, and, at one point, were able to feel the pumpkins and decide whether they were heavy or lightadding to their experience with the weight of pumpkins, helping them to decide which pumpkins would be more likely to sink or float.

REFLECT
I believe this activity was successful because it provided the students with a familiar activity, but with a new twist. Previously, the students had watched an apple placed in the water so they were familiar with the process of placing an object in water and decided whether it floated or sank. However, in this activity the students were able to make predications on what they thought would happen. Furthermore, the students were able to feel the pumpkins prior to placing them in the water to get a sense of the true weight of the object rather than just looking at it and guessing whether they thought it would be heavy or not. By allowing the students to feel the actual weight, I was able to help them justify their predictions, although they were inaccurate (i.e. the big pumpkin will sink because it is the heaviest.) If I was to complete this experiment again I would have the students feel the weight of each of the pumpkins prior to the whole experiment. I would also provide visuals to reiterate the meaning of sink and float since there are a number of nonEnglish speaking students in the class who might need additional visual support for some of the terminology.

EVALUATE
The student guesses varied on whether the pumpkins would sink or float. Although not all the students were correct in their hypothesis, I was still satisfied with their ability to make a prediction on an experiment. After the large group activity with sinking or floating ended the tub of water and pumpkins was placed in the science/ discovery center for the students to investigate further on their own. The goals of this lesson were successfully achieved because the students were able to verbalize their informed hypothesis after feeling the pumpkins and using the information gathered from feeling the weight to decide whether or not the pumpkin would float or sink. Furthermore, they could discuss what they saw during the experiment.