The First Day Butterflies Are Over!

I would like to start off by congratulating my classmates for a job well done today!!!  

For the first day teaching the butterfly unit, or more like the first day ever teaching a lesson, it went surprisingly smooth. I say surprisingly, because prior to teaching the lesson, I was expecting chaos.  I pictured myself getting up in front of the second graders and just freezing.  I have never been the best public speaker, and I was more nervous today, than I was before taking the MTELS. I think what calmed my nerves a bit, was that Lindsay and I came in with a well prepared lesson plan.  I mentioned the analogy on a prior blog, a lesson plan is to a teacher, as a play book is to a coach.  Our lesson plan prepared us to run a successful lesson.  We had goals written out in which we wanted the students to achieve, and the steps it would take for us to get them there.  We also knew our lesson was age appropriate and valid, because we linked our content objectives and key question in with the MA frameworks.  I think our first lesson was a good foundation for us to build the rest of our lessons off of.  

Also, I believed Lindsay and I incorporated safety, the focus topic for this week, into our lesson well.  It was part of our key question, and I was pleased that the students answered it easily at the end of class. This just made me confident that we at least got one of our main points across.  The students learned that it is not always safe to use taste when making observations; and also that wafting is a good skill to use when smelling an unknown object.  In order to teach this concept, Lindsay and I modeled the technique at the beginning of the lesson, and had the students practice with us.  We also gave them several helpful reminders to use safety when participating in our activity.   

 Lastly, I want to thank my co-teacher Lindsay for being so easy to work with.  The lesson would not have been half as successful without her.  We really meshed when planning and implementing our lesson.  When writing up the lesson we kept feeding off each others ideas, until we reached what we thought to be a well-developed and engaging lesson for the students.  While teaching, we delivered instruction back and forth, and were able to build off each other statements effectively.  We also were great about staying active in the lesson, by either passing out activities or rotating around the room, while the other was talking.  I felt at ease teaching next to Lindsay, and I felt like I had been doing it for ages!