Vicki’s Edu260 Weblog

This week was the first week we actually got to see Science within the classroom. Ms. Dillon told us why this is and it is because she “goes in clumps” between social studies and science because there is only a hour a day set aside and she thinks that going in clumps is easier and more beneficial for the students than switching back and forth.

On Tuesday is when we went over the science lesson. Back in December (January was Social Studies Month), they studied Force and Motion. First they reviewed the key words and talked about what each one meant and then Ms. Dillon described their new project they were going to tackle. Previous projects included the force of 2 cars hitting each other, building ramps to see whose marble could go the slowest, using magnets to see the pull and push of the force between magnets, and a ping-pong force game, using straws to push it between 2 straws. So their new project was to design something that uses their own force (pushing, throwing, ect.) that will travel the furthest in the hallway. The kids were really excited about designing and got right to work, coming up with a few different designs in case their first one didn’t work out.

On Wednesday the students worked on publishing their stories on the mobile computer lab. Working with the computers, Hilary and I helped with technical difficulties, spelling, and anything else that needed to be done during that time. After the students put their computers away, they headed for their reading groups. I was again in the Amish Book group, but they had finished the book, so now they are discussing things that they saw in the book. On Wednesday, Ms. Dillon brought in her own quilts that others had made her to share with our reading group, because the day before Mrs. McCoy had brought hers in to show the students. The students loved learning about the stories behind the quilts that were shared with them. After putting the quilts away, Mrs. McCoy started to show them how to thread a needle and sew patches of material together. This was a little chaotic, but it was a great experience because most of the kids had never done this before and might never get the chance either.

On Thursday was the Writers Notebook where the students listen to a story and then write something that was inspired by the book. Today’s book was The Rag Coat by Lauren Mills. After reading the book, the students got 20 minutes to write their story, poem, or whatever they felt compelled to write. Then,we all gathered back into the circle and shared whatever we wanted to of our writings. It was really interesting to hear all the different things that the students came up with. After that, we went back to our reading groups where the kids were learning how to sew buttons today. Mrs. McCoy said this was important because it’s a life skill that EVERYONE should have, so it was great that she was tkaing the time to show the students how to do it correctly.

This week, the thing that really interested me was the sewing lesson. This is a lesson that I think most children should have, but I now can see how and why it’s hard to do, even with just 7 kids at a time. It is an important life skill, just to be able to stitch and sew buttons and I really think that these students really will benifit from learning this through their classroom. Also, during the Writers Notebook today, a few students connected what they had learned from the Amish book to what we were reading and showed that they really understand and listened to what they were learning, which is a great thing to see!

Also, connecting to last weeks presentations on how to encourage kids and say “good job” in a different way or how to say “no that’s wrong” in a nice way, I heard Ms. Dillon say this week to a student who’s answer was not right “I don’t know if I agree with you…” and then she went on to explain why and what the real answer was. I really liked this approach because you aren’t saying “no you are wrong” but more of along the lines of discussing why this is not quite  right.