Week two at Science After School

Bugs, bugs, everywhere!

Taught by Miss Sarah and Miss Sophie

*African music playing in the background*

          As the children came into the classroom, we pointed out our discovery table that had many different kinds of bugs on it. There were displays of butterflies, walking sticks, beetles, spiders, ticks, ants, bees, and even live hissing cockroaches! The students were intrigued by the hissing cockroaches because when you petted them, they hissed. (It sounded like we were frying bacon.)

          Once everyone arrived we started out lesson. We told the kids that we were going outside, but we had some ground rules first. I taught them 1-2-3 eyes on me, which came in handy later.

         We rode our zebra stripped magic school bus from the doors to our bug hunting location. With our clipboard, pencils, and magnifying glasses in hand, we hunted for bus. My group had a little surprise with a slug. Miss Sarah’s group saw a beetle. Then we hopped back into the bus to go back inside.

          When we came back inside the students sat on the multi-colored puzzle piece mats. It is nice not to have to sit in a chair all the time. Next, we compared the types of bugs that we saw. Miss Sarah and I gave out plastic bugs to the students and one by one we talked about them. We counted their legs and body parts, and then placed them on the board, one side or the other.       The students were very smart. They knew right away that the bugs on the left were insects and the bugs on the right were not insects. Then we compared some African bugs. By this time, the children knew their stuff and breezed through the pictures of African insects and other bugs. Toward the end of this part of the lesson, the students started getting a little restless, but have no fear; we had something else for them to do!           We came back into our seats and changed a While Thing into an insect. The monster/insects drawing were quite impressive. Some had wings and others had big eyes. Some were looking at you sideways, and others were showed their white teeth.

         After they finished their drawings, we taught them an insect song. They really liked the ant verse where they got to get up and march like an ant.            Then we broke out the insect “eggs”. We put them in warm water and watched them hatch. But while they were hatching, we talked Miss Sarah into holding a hissing cockroach! The kids went over to pet it and to hear it hiss at them. 

          Once their insects hatched, they figured out what their insects were. We had flies, dragon flies, and ants, and even a butterfly.           There was a little bit of a surprise at the end of our lesson. We got to eat meal worms. They were BBQ flavored. To my surprise, all of the children wanted to try one. Then we pack up their things and sent them home. 

I can’t wait to see what they do next week.

Wild, Wonderful Eastern Woodland Indians!

Where exactly are those wild things we keep talking about?! 

    In week two, students learned all about where they might actually be able to find some wild things: their backyard!  Eastern Woodlans Indians settled all along the eastern coast and even here, in West Virginia.  In an attempt to find out more about the Eastern Woodland Indians and the wild things in our own backyards, we set out on a camping trip!

Classroom environment: We wanted students to be excited about our lesson and we could think of no better way than to transform our classroom!  With the help of a tent, campfire, and flashlights we were able to turn our boring, college classroom into a coloful West Virginia campsite. Setup in the back corner of the room was an exploration table and in the front was supply table.  We put an extra-large poster of West Virginia on the wall with the counties outlined so students would have a visual representation. (There was also a huge movie poster of "Where the Wild Things Are"!!)  Mr. Wolf and I also wore "Where the Wild Things Are" t-shirts for some added fun!

The entire hour was packed with activities for the students!  We split our time with the students into an exploration, 4 stations, and a closure.  We aimed to incorporate the Eastern Woodland Indian culture with the theme of "Where the Wild Things Are" in a fun, yet challenging learning environment.  My partner and I knew that keeping our students' attention was going to be essential to our success as first-time teachers.  Since students had already been sitting all day at school, we planned for very little inactive time in our lesson.


Station #1: In the folklore station, we turned out the lights and got into a huge tent while students listened to the "Big Chief" read a folklore legend of Seneca Rocks with the help of some handy flashlights!  The students were very attentive during the story and surprised me with their previous knowledge of Seneca Rocks. 


Station #3: In the housing station, students were given the opportunity to explore a real, live tipi (see picture below)!  Students learned about the three tpes of housing that were associated with the Eastern Woodland Indians: tipis, wigwams, and longhouses and the evolution from a nomadic society to an agrarian society.
(See Mr. Wolfe's blog for Stations #2 and #4)

Other Activities:  To stick with our Native American theme, we incorporated many small details into the lesson to give it an authentic feel.  We used "Laws of the Council" as our classroom management plan.  Students used the sign of the Woodraft and referred to their teachers as "Big Chief".  During the exploration, students got a hands on look at animal tracks of some animals they might find in their backyard, such as a deer, fox, bear, etc. In pairs, students were challenged to match animal pictures with the corresponding animal tracks.  Four stations later, students got the opportunity to have their faces painted like traditional Native American warriors during the conclusion!

A special thanks! Thanks so much to everyone who helped us with our lesson!  It was a huge help to have everyone running last minute errands so we could keep things running smoothly with the students.  I'm so thankful to have such supportive classmates! :)

More picures to come!

A Creepy Crawly Lesson!

The crazy girl above holding a Madagascar hissing cockroach is me, Miss Sarah!

I held this creepy crawly bug during my Science After School lesson with the Primary students.  These roaches were part of a discovery table that my K-2 group of kids thoroughly enjoyed.

The goal of the lesson that Miss Sophie and I put together was to have our students be able to classify and identify an insect from a non-insect.  An insect has 6 legs and 3 body parts (head, thorax, and abdomen).  I'll now take you through the events of the hour we spent with the wonderful students:

• The students walked in and went to the discovery table.
• We told the students we would be talking about bugs.
• We took the students outside with clipboards, pencils, and magnifying glasses and had them draw bugs they saw (paying close attention to legs/body parts).
• When we came back inside, the students picked plastic bugs that looked like their drawings and we divided these selections into two groups on the board, but didn't tell students how we were classifying
• We then explained that they were grouped by insects and non-insects.  Here is a picture of me pointing to the non-insects:
  
  
  
  
  

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   After this we took example of African bugs (they're laminated and setting on the chalkboard) and held an insect and non-insect.  The students were to stand up if I was holding the insect or remain seated if Sophie was holding the insect.
  
  
  
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  The students then turned a wild thing into an insect.  It was a great application for the kids because they had to figure out how many more legs and body part the wild thing needed:
  
  
  
  
  

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  Once this was done we taught the kids the insect song which can be found here:  http://www.mrsjonesroom.com/songs/insects2.html.
  
  
  
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  Then we hatched "insect eggs."  We used pellets that turn into sponges in warm water as our eggs
  
  This is when Miss Sophie got me to hold the hissing cockroach (We were waiting for eggs to hatch.):
  
  
  
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  We then handed out spider rings which the students decided were not insects because they have too many legs.
  
  
  
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  Last but not least, we handed out an edible non-insect: barbecue flavored meal worms which the students surprisingly ate!
  
  
  
  Overall, the lesson was great!  I enjoyed the students and I really appreciate all the parents who brought their children to Fairmont State's Science After School Program.
  
  

Welcome to the Polar Region!!!

Science After School!!

Hello to all of the wild things out there! My name is Maria Alvaro, and I am going to talk about my week with the intermediate students at Science After School 2009. Kaylin and I started the week with a journey to the Polar region, exploring the wild things. We introduced the theme of the week by giving each child a crown with the name “Max” on it, symbolizing Max from the book Where the Wild Things Are by Maurice Sendak. The students decorated their crowns while waiting for the voyage to begin.

Once every child had arrived, we kicked off the lesson with a little help from our friends Courtney and Josh, the dancing penguins. They were great!! Any person willing to do the running man in a penguin costume gets my vote. After we warmed up, we read a few passages from the book to the students. We then began our exploration of the Polar Region. The students were so smart! I introduced the six wild things that we’d be discussing for the next hour. The wild things were as follows: a caribou, polar bear, arctic fox, arctic hare, snowy owl, and a walrus. The students knew more than I had imagined about these fascinating wild things. I would introduce each animal, and each student would tell me everything they knew about it. I filled in the gaps with each animal, giving them fascinating facts about each wild thing. Did you know that a domesticated caribou is actually a reindeer? That was their favorite fact of the day. Also, did you know that a polar bear has black skin? The students were so intrigued by this information! I love when students learn something new. We played a game about the wild things, applying our fresh ideas to the lesson.

After the game, we transitioned into Kaylin’s portion of the lesson, learning about the food chain and food web. The students learned about autotrophs, primary and secondary consumers and producers, predators, and so much more! The students were broken into two groups, one led by me and the other led by Kaylin. The intermediate students raced to put together two different food chains correctly. Once finished, the students had to place the consumers, producers, autotrophs and predators on the board to win the race! Both groups did a fantastic job! Following the races, the students formed a big circle and played a game with the food web using a ball of yarn. The students learned to apply their prior knowledge to a new and unfamiliar situation. The students realized that animals may become extinct, and if that happens, many other animals, insects, plants, etc. could be affected.

The students came to the conclusion that we need to keep our land safe and animals protected in order to survive the next 5 billion years! It was a successful day and I can’t wait until week two!!! Next stop: The Native American’s of North America!

-----Maria-----

Maria and Kaylin with the students! They love to learn!

Courtney the Penguin!

JuNgLe! =)

For Heather and my portion of "Where the Wild Things Are," we created an African jungle. It was a very tedious process creating all of our animals, but I think the ending product made it worthwhile. We created two different rooms - one where the story was read which set the mood, and the other where all the animal explorations took place. To connect the two rooms, we set up giant , scaled, animal tracks for the students to follow until it led us to our destination. The animal tracks consisted of elephants, cheetahs, zebras, and hippos. I thought this part was incredible because the children actually all tried to fit into one print and it gave them an idea of how big these animals really are.

When the students first arrived earlier than the start time, Heather and I were very startled. We did not take into consideration the down time we would have before the activity would actually start. Once we got our wits about us, we decided to have the kids draw a wild thing.  We also decided to sit and get to know them a bit better. Some kids opened up right away, while others needed a bit of coaxing.

Once it was time for the activity to began, Heather read the story, and the children all listened and answered any questions we had. After the story, we told the kids they were going to see where wild things were in Africa. The excitement on one little boy's face made me so happy!

He looked at me and said, "Are we really going to Africa, how long does it take to get there?" I thought that was the most precious thing and was so excited that he was that interested in what we were doing.

The kids had an opportunity to make binoculars, and their enthusiasm towards it was also exciting. Once the kids created their binoculars, we showed them a map of where we would be traveling to.  We then got on the magical schoolbus that our group had built out of boxes and spray-painted with zebra stripes to take us to the other room.

The animal prints that I previously mentioned took us to the African safari room. Once we arrived into the jungle we explored elephants, zebras, hippos, cheetahs, as well as bats. The kids loved exploring the bat cave, touching the cheetah and zebra skins and learning all there is to know about the animals we had for them. The only thing I would do differently in the safari room is to only allow a few kids in the bat cave at a time, because when they all got in there they started to act up a bit.

When the exploration of the safari room was done we went back to our original room, where the students created their own jungle using markers and paper. The kids drew amazing pictures with great details, and I was so proud of them! All in all I thought that the experience was amazing, and I would love to do it again. I think that the kids are going to continue to enjoy their next three weeks in the program and look forward to what will come. =)

--Some classmates enjoying our bat cave!

Welcome to the Jungle!

This past Tuesday Kayla and I began the Science After School program with the primary students. We kicked off the program with me reading “Where the Wild Things Are”, this is the theme of this year’s program. After reading the story we made binoculars and got on our very own magic school bus and headed down the hallway to explore Africa. Along the way we discovered a variety of footprints that lead our group to the jungle.

The students were so excited when we got to Africa. There were five different animals (elephant, zebra, hippo, cheetah, and bats) that we talked about and had large paintings of Kayla and I talked about each animal and passed pictures of them around. We had zebra and cheetah skins that the students could feel and even put over their heads. These were definitely a big hit! We also had a bat cave that the students could crawl into. One thing I would definitely change about our lesson is to only allow two or three students into the cave at once, that way the chance of behaviour problems would be reduced.

When we finished discovering the animals in Africa we got back on our bus and headed back to the United States. In the classroom we drew pictures of at least three of the animals we explored. Some students had no trouble at all doing this while others needed a little more encouragement to stay on task.

Overall I thought the lesson went great. Although it was time consuming to prepare for, I had a lot of fun coming up with things to do and actually teaching it. I think that Science After School is a great program and that the students will enjoy what my peers will be teaching throughout the next three weeks!

African Jungle 1

Elepahtns and cheetah footprints

African jungle 2

Bat cave

The SAS Partnership With Sue McJunkin and Carnegie Museum of Natural History

This semester, all of my Science Methods Maniacs have been part of a partnership-in-the-making with Pat McShea, Sue McJunkin and the Carnegie Museum of Natural History. Pat McShea, the program officer of Carnegie Museum of Natural History's distance learning initiative, and Sue McJunkin, the program specialist have worked with my students over the last six weeks. Sue conducted a somewhat low-tech phone conference with the methods class early in September. She prepared my students for various possibilities that Carnegie could provide for them as pre-service teachers in the Science After School program. On September 11, 2009, all seventeen of my methods students went to explore Carnegie Museum of Natural History for ideas on the topics they would teach during the month of SAS.

During our time at the museum, Mr. McShea allowed the students to explore the various items and kits available through Carnegie's Educational Loan Collection through their Division of Education. He also introduced the purpose of using 'object learning' with students. He emphasized the importance of creating lasting memories in a social context and addressing tactile learning by using objects that children would not normally be able to touch and explore in their everyday lives. The result has been getting all of the methods students involved in learning how to use kits and objects to teach science that addresses the whole child.

Kayla and Heather explore many of the exhibits at Carnegie.

The lessons have to focus on teaching the whole child, as well. Science lessons must address at least three of Gardner's Multiple Intelligences, it must be differentiated, and it must be hands-on science. I believe that by teaching science in this way, we can begin to reach not just the schooled student, but rather the musician, the dancer, the artist, the explorer, the thinker, the scientist that exists within every child.

Science After School in the making

What is Science After School (SAS)?
It is science enrichment after school program for children that are in kindergarten through sixth grade. It is planned and organized by the Elementary Science Methods class every semester.
The professor, Angela McKeen, gives the students an overall topic/theme for the program and the undergrad elementary education college students do the rest.

The design for SAS:
There is a new theme every semester. This is because there is a new group of college students every semester. It also gives the elementary students fresh topics to explore. The program is usually one a week for four weeks. There are two separate age categories; one for kindergarten through second grade and one for third grade through sixth grade. Each day there is a new sub-topic and new teachers. There are two teachers for each group level for each day.
Parents and guardians are more than welcome to come and watch SAS action. We provide seating and a closed circuit video for all to watch. The lesson is recorded for learning purposes only. After teaching, each pre-service teacher must watch the video with Professor McKeen, who then evaluates all aspects of our teaching with us, provides feedback to us, and assigns our grades.

What are the responsibilities of each elementary education major?
Each elementary education student is to find a partner. Then they get into two groups, primary and intermediate, and discuss ideas that will go with the main theme. Once they have brainstormed for a while, then they pick their sub-topics that they will be teaching. Then, with their partners, the method students research their topics and start putting together ideas for their lesson. After they have their lesson put together, it gets checked by Professor Angela McKeen to make sure that it is a well-prepared lesson to present to elementary students.
While the method students are planning their lessons, they also are making decorations to make the entrance of the classroom and the classroom itself welcoming and exciting.

What's done before the elementary students show up?
About an hour before the elementary students show up, tape is flying and the smell of markers is everywhere. College desks are being pulled out of their rooms and being replaced by children-sized tables. A video recorder is getting set up, all wires are being connected, and Angela is almost ready to say "Action!"

What happens after the elementary students leave?
Once Angela says "That's a wrap," for the next hour decorations are torn down, tape is picked off the walls and floors, the tables are put away, and the desks are put back in their rightful places. The videos are finalized and the cameras are carefully put away. Then the college students go home to do homework.
Later, the method students who taught that night meet with Angela to watch their video and discuss how they did. They talk about what they think went well, what didn't go so well, what they could have done better, and tips for how to better handle situations that came up.

How do I sign up my child?
Every semester the director of SAS sends out brochures not only to each elementary and middle school in Marion County but also to the students that have previously participated in the program. There is an application form in each brochure. Fill it out and send it in with the check. Then you wait for a call to confirm that your child has been accepted into the program. If the program is full already, they will add your name to the mailing list and send you a brochure next semester.

~Sophie