Today was finally the long awaited day! I was
able to give the lesson Julia and I created at Brigham. We were in the
preschool classroom today. Our job was to wrap up the 5 senses unit we have
been working on with this specific classroom. At first we thought that this
might be challenging because we were not in charge of teaching and new content
only reviewing content that had already been taught. However, after thinking
about the different avenues we could use to review this content we decided on
small group rotations. We were lucky enough to have five amazing assistants
with us today in preschool. One of these girls manned each station. There was a
seeing, hearing, touching, tasting and smelling station. The eleven students
that were present today were split up into five groups. Each group was able to
spend about five minutes at each station.
At each station they were doing something
different. At the hearing station the students were listening to different
familiar sounds and identifying what sound they had hear using their ears. At
the seeing station the students were categorizing many random items by color
using their eyes. At the touching station the students were feeling items with
their hands to decide if they were hard or soft. At the tasting station the
students were able to taste salt and sugar. They identified each as sweet and
salty. Then the students categorized pictures of foods into the categories
salty or sweet. Last, but not least, was the smelling station. At this station
the students were able to smell many different scents from bottles. They then
matched the scent in the bottle to a picture of what it smelled like.
I think that the lesson went very well! It was
evident that the students had worked in small group rotations before because they
were so quick and quiet when we switched groups. The one aspect of the lesson
that we were worried about was the transitions from small group to small group.
We knew that this would either make or break the flow of our lesson. If the
students had never done a lesson like this before I would be extremely
surprised and even prouder of how well they handled the responsibility of
traveling from one spot to another.
We also knew that the classroom had some English
Language Learners in it so we were sure to include many pictures and hands on
activities. We have learned this semester that providing visuals, modeling and
hands on activities can be very helpful for second language learners. This way
they do not have to rely so much on the language to show what they have learned
or express what they want to say. Personally, I did not experience any students
who did not understand the directions or what they were supposed to be doing.
However, I was observing a specific child most of the time during small groups so
I was not able to personally see every child.
If we were to do the lesson all over again I
would change two major aspects of the lesson. First, I would have asked the
teacher to group the students. We were only in the preschool classroom three
times this entire semester. So while we were starting to know the students a
little bit better I do not feel like we know them well enough to put them in
appropriate groups. Today we put the students in groups based off of who they
sat by on the carpet. Which, looking back on it may not have been the best
decision. I know the students in my clinical placement sit next to their best
friends at round up time which sometimes leads to behavior problems.
Thankfully, today we did not have any major behavior problems. But I do feel
like we paired some very outgoing students with some extremely shy students.
What I found was that the outgoing students were answering all of the questions
and at times talked over the quiet student. In one specific group a little boy
would wait for the more outspoken student to answer the question that was
asked. Then he would repeat whatever answer was just stated even if it was
incorrect. I think if we would have asked the teachers in the room to pick the
groups they would have been able to use their deeper individual knowledge of
the students to form better groups.
The second major problem I would change is
something that I have wanted to change since our first week at Brigham. I
always feel like the end of our lessons are a bit choppy because we are unsure
where the students are supposed to go next or what the teach has planned for
them. This causes us to close the lesson and walk out of the room without
knowing much of what happens when we leave. I think it would create a much
smoother transition if we knew what was going to happen next and could
transition the students into that activity before we leave.
All in all, I did not learn much more or make any
advances toward by goal today. I feel like many of the students in the
preschool classroom speak enough English to actively participate in our lesson
that we had planned for them. This meant that not many techniques or tools were
used other than visual and hands on approaches, of course. I have learned a lot
about teaching in a preschool or kindergarten setting while at Brigham. Today I
learned that if you give a preschooler a tiny taste of salt many of them will
look at you like you lied to them or like they are going to cry! Honestly, this
is something I did not even consider when writing the lesson plan because older
students know what salt tastes like so it wouldn’t come as so much of a surprise
to them. There are so many different considerations you have to take when
teaching young children. But the number on consideration I have learned is how
detailed you need to be about directions. They need to be repeated and modeled
for them multiple times.
Exceeds: I included a picture quote and related my experience back to my clinical placement.
