Lesson 6 reflection

 This week's lesson was on advocacy. One of our students was absent. For this lesson we went over our expectations and started with our ice breaker which was who is one person from history you would want to have dinner with. The students said their great grandparents, themselves, and George Washington. We started by having the students watch a story that was a video about a child and their doll. The story was about how the child and some adults in the story had to stand up for themselves. Then the students completed a cause and effect chart about the story. After this the students created inventions to help the community or the environment. The students drew machines that helped with transportation and getting food and water to people in need. Then we had the students create a hashtag for their invention. To close out since this was the last lesson with our students we had them decorate the pinch pots they made the lesson before. 

I learned that students have big imaginations. At such a young age they want to help people and have big ideas that they think can be put into the world. When the students created there inventions they wanted to provide food and water to people in need. They put these inventions out in parks so everyone could have access to them. 

Lesson 5 Reflection

 

    This lesson we taught was about culture. We talked about their own cultures as well as the culture of the Native people of Vermont. To start we went over the expectations and agenda. I took the time to really remind the students of the expectations because of the interruption problems we've been having the last few lessons. I not only went over them but asked how we can show how we follow each of these expectations. Then for this ice break we asked if the students could talk about their culture at home. The students seemed a little confused so we asked if they ate food that was different then their friends or peers or if they celebrated any holidays that were different. Maybe if they spoke different languages at home. The students didn’t know about their cultures and said they celebrate the traditional holidays in the U.S. Like Christmas, Easter, Thanksgiving, and Memorial Day. 

    Then we did a Pictionary vocabulary lesson. To modify the game I used hints to help them guess the vocabulary word. It was definitely not too hard but not too easy for the students and they enjoyed drawing. After the pictionary game we listened to a book about the tribe and did the anchor chart to start to talk about the Natives people of Vermont called the Abenaki Tribe. We made a venn diagram to compare mainstream American culture to the Abenaki Tribe where students stuck pictures to the chart. The students did a great job sticking photos to the chart in the correct places. 

    Next we made pinch pots like the Native Tribe would to make their dishes out of clay. We used air dry clay. I made a pot alongside them so we can model and stay on track with time. We also had one student absent so this can be used as hers when we decorate them at the last lesson to close out. The students enjoyed making the pots and they now have to dry. After this for our last activity we learned about many cultures. They watched a 5 minute video about cultures around the world that was turned into a song. Then we did a sort where they matched countries, languages, and pictures of festivals or common foods and dresses or holidays. 

    This week I learned how to better handle the students with their behavior. This week I went over the expectations very thoroughly to remind them of how we can show the expectations. I also showed them the air-dry clay and explained that to get through the activity and have time to play with the clay we needed to use our expectations and have minimal interruptions during this lesson.  

Lesson 4 Reflection

 This weeks lesson was on economics. The did a T-chart and a drawing connections activity. First we went over the agenda and expectations like every week. Then we did the ice breaker. We asked what superpower the students would want for a day. Next we talked about resources. We did a small matching activity with pictures of objects that the students had to match to each kind of recourse. Then we talked about services and goods. After this we gave the students the t-chart. They were expected to fill in goods and services on each side of the chart. The students had a hard time thinking of goods so we gave hints to look around the class, think about what they buy at stores, what they brought to school in there backpacks. For services the students were answering with jobs so when we shared the columns we had them explain what services went with each job that they wrote. We then switched the discussion over to tracing with other countries and how we make money through buying goods from other places. The students then drew pictures of economics with other countries. Some made up there own imaginary places and some used real countries. They drew pictures of people buying food from other countries. Borrowing money from other countries. Even crossing over the border with shopping bags. 

This week I learned that this group of students is very artistic. Instead of doing anything with writing I will try to plan things that involve more hands-on crafts. I have been having a harder time with my group with staying on tasks and not interrupting. Some students in the group have a tendency to talk to each other so I may try to move seats around. 

Lesson Reflection Three

 This lesson focused on civics. We did a voting activity followed by a discussion on government in Vermont and then we performed a play. To start the lesson we went over the agenda with the students and did a quick refresher on our expectations. Then we started our ice breaker that was about the students wanting a shorter school day or a long recess. We asked this to open up the voting part of our lesson. The students mainly all wanted a short school day so they could hangout with their friends at home. Then we started with a vocab matching activity with flashcards. We set up all the definitions and the students voted which vocabulary word went with which definition. The students got almost all of them right except for switching up two words. We then did a quick voting explanation about what happens and what it looks like and what you vote for on a ballot. My co-teacher and I then did a quick campaign and had the students vote for us. We had students vote on two ballots, one that was about school and one that was about the environment and money. Next we talked about the levels of government and what each one is responsible for. I then gave the kids a few scenarios and they were expected to tell us which level of government was responsible for each scenario. Last we did a play with characters that were enforcers. The play was about following rules and laws and why it was important. As we read each scene I had the students tell me who the enforcer or enforcers were in each scene. To wrap up we read the M is for Maple book about the state of Vermont.  

In the future I will stick to more hands-on activities. I have learned that my group does not like to write in any way. I have to make activities so that the students don’t have to write sentences in any way. As long as they do something like a fill in the blank or finish the sentence they are fine. I have also noticed the students get restless so in future lessons I think we will do a brain break so they can do something non academic for a few minutes. 

Lesso 2 reflection

This week we talked about primary and secondary sources, we created a timeline of Vermont history, and we talked about some of the historic events and their causes and effects. First we went over the agenda and the expectations chart created together. Then we did our ice breaker where we asked if the students would rather live in the past or the future. The children responded with a variety of answers, one even being that he just wanted to live in the moment. Then we started on our first activity being the primary and secondary sources. This was more of a vocabulary where we talked about what the words meant and some examples of them. We then had the students match sources like a declaration of independence and a biography. The students are well with this activity and match all the examples correctly. Then we did the timeline. We laminated different historic events in Vermont with dates for the students into cards. Then we present the timeline and the way that it worked and how the dates would appear. The kids then used the dates to put the timeline in order and we read off the cards. The last activity we did with the students this week was the cause and effect. We had a sheet with causes and had the students brainstorm the effects that these events on the timeline had on the people of Vermont. We asked how these events affected people's everyday lives. The kids came up with similar answers like when asked how the big flood affected the people they answer with things like people being hurt, homes were destroyed, food was destroyed. This week I helped one of the students more one on one based on what I saw last week. Last week he was very hesitant to do any work but had no problem talking and sharing with the group. I sat and read all the questions and brainstormed with him. He also has a hard time spelling and doesn’t like to write his answer down so we talked about how to write down what he wanted and I helped with spelling. After this the students had a little time so they drew one of the events on the back of the worksheet. 

I learned a lot about the students this week. That one student in particular shows that he wants to learn and he is smart but he is very discouraged when asked to write anything. Next time I will try sentence starters on things so he writes less. Also the kids have a hard time taking turns talking but also letting us talk. No matter if we are talking about content or directions one student disrupts a lot. For future lessons I want to try and control the talking more by maybe having rewards or a system of some sort. I find that even after many reminders of the expectations where they start to say kind words and listen to others when they are talking, the students still ignore the reminders. I don’t like the idea too much of a talking stick but if I have to use one I will try. 

Lesson 1 Reflection

This week's lesson was on geography. More specifically how the geography of the state of Vermont affects the jobs, activities and where people live. This was also the first week with this group of students. We started with introductions. We have one girl and three boys. One boy will be coming half way through the lesson. We introduced ourselves and the kids went one by one telling us their name and then as a community building exercise we asked if they liked mountains or lakes better because these are part of Vermont's geography. The kids were pretty 50/50. After this we made the expectations chart. I chose to have the students make the chart with us. I came with a chart numbered one through five and together we made a list of expectations for each lesson. We went over the agenda for the lesson and crossed off what we had done thus far. The next activity was the map labeling. We started with a small five minute video that introduced the state of Vermont. It talked about the geography, history, how it got its name, some state facts, the weather and more. After they got a small intro to the state and some background knowledge about what they were going to be learning about we went over some vocabulary for the lesson. I picked about five words I thought would be unfamiliar to the students and we did a small matching activity with cards to match the definition to the word. I passed around all the cards and one by one we read out the definitions and had the students put up what word they thought matched. We then voted on which one we thought it was. The students matched all of the definitions and words correctly. Then we moved on to the map. I printed out a map for each student. These maps were going to be used to label the large anchor chart map. We started by explaining the map legend and what the symbols meant. Then we talked about the compass. The students all took turns labeling each part of the map. All of the students got a chance to label and were pretty accurate. The last activity was to tie in how the geography affected the citizens of the state. I had the students make a chart of the different parts of the geography of Vermont. Then they would list examples from the state, the jobs that would match that area and last activities that also matched. We didn't get to fully finish the chart because we ran out of time. I think we didn’t account for enough time for the introduction but also first meeting the kids and learning that they are a very chatty group will help with future planning. The students enjoyed the coloring part of the chart where I asked them to draw examples of the jobs, activities, and landforms. This group is very chatty and gets very off task easily. I find it may be a challenge to keep this group on task and for future planning me and my partner will have to find a way to keep the kids focused and talking about the lesson. 

This week I learned that keeping students focused and one task isn’t always so easy. There were many incidents where the students would answer questions and take a very long time. They were talking over each other and us. They would interrupt directions and questions being asked during the lesson. Not that the children were being rude or disrespectful in any way but they have lots of energy and have a lot to say. 

In the future I would try to make an easier lesson for the first visit. I think maybe I planned a lesson that was more detail oriented without knowing my students. Now that I know my students more personally I can gear the lesson more towards things that will keep them more focused, on task, and interested. 

 

Potluck Reflection

 My group's topic was civics and democratic education. We made a slide presentation with different activities embedded with questions to help you think about our topic. We first had the class take a kahoot that were questions from the citizens test for our country. This was to prove that students are taught many things about the country that immigrants need to learn for the test to become a citizen. We talked about important ways to do your civic duties and how these can be used in a classroom setting to help teach students early on. I think the class was very engaged in our presentation and they had fun learning but I think we had a few technical difficulties so in the future we could have all the tabs ready when presenting. 

It is important to teach students about their civic duties. By implementing these skills in your classroom you are better preparing students for the real world. An example we used was mock elections where students vote for either class leaders but even just voting for different choices. It is important to teach them to consider both sides and choose what is best. 

I learned that students need to be taught how to be involved in their democracy. No one is there to tell them how to be involved in their own government. Having students apply these skills in class will help with their future. Teaching students about current events also keeps them in tune with their surroundings and what is going on in the world they live in.