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.