the presentations are still rolling...

Once again today, we did our mid term presentations, they take a while, because we are just in pairs, so there are a lot of groups. The groups today have actually taught the class, we learned how to make clay, we made tornado's with two bottles of pop, and we judged which part of our tongues taste what types of food. The days fly by when we are doing these projects because so much is going on! I think there are only a couple left, but I really enjoy these so kind of bummed there done, but at the same time I'm ready to get back to regular class learning.

presentations

Today was a great day for me because I just got to sit back, relax, and watch the other groups perform their presentations! I really enjoyed getting to do the experiments, one we did involved soap, yeast, and water and we put it in bottles and it fuzzed over the bottle like a volcano, very cool, especially for young kids! Then we did one where we mixed water and corn starch and it made a really cool clay-like play dough that would be a solid until you held it, then would turn to a liquid! Very cool! We also shot off rockets in the class! One of the groups showed oil spills by having us dip a bird feather in water and oil to see what happens when birds or other animals get oil on them...and it is not good! Washing the penguin looked so painful but it would save his life. Overall, all the groups have been so creative with coming up with fun lessons.

midterm presentations

I felt today's class went very fast, due to the midterm presentations. Sometimes it's fun to switch roles and we teach eachother and Dr. E is a student, its just a good change of pace. I felt our experiment on mixing water and oil turned out very good, I was even amazed to see how cool it looked when we added food coloring. Everybodies lessons were really creative, and I liked how some of the groups created their own videos, very clever. I am glad to successfully get my teaching out of the way so I can relax and watch everyone else's. This is a good way to have a midterm, instead of a test all the time.

pinnnggg ponnnggg

I am watching the food network channel as I am doing this and now I want a blizzard!! haha ...just a side note, but in todays class, we discussed the chapter 5 and 6 questions for the most part. I am feeling a bit overwhelmed at this point in the semester because everything is starting to pile up, but I'm enjoying it all right now! After we went over the questions in class it was time to experiment! We were giving two small plastic cups, a small funnel, and a ping pong ball and we blew on the ball to make it go into the other cup. This is something you could get really creative with, I liked this activity, and the questions that went along with the activity fit in just perfectly. We do lots of good experiments and activities that we can use as future teachers in this class.

technology day!

I feel that incorporating technology into the classroom, and the activity we did in class yesterday would be great for all grade levels. For those of you who don't know, we did worksheets on safety, we had to click on links for exactly what to do if someone steels from us, or if a predator is talking to us on the computer. These issues are growing daily, so teaching our students about what to do if certain circumstances occur will be very helpful to them, as well as getting practice on the computer! Another thing I enjoyed today was voting on our shirts for judging the science fair, doing something like creating shirts is something that sets us apart from the others at the science fair and gives us another thing to look forward to--so I think it is a great idea! And who can't use another t-shirt (I wear them everyday)! :) ...Anyway there are so many opportunities for teachers to teach using technology, so practicing creative ways will really prepare us for our classrooms.

midterm already!!

Well I cannot believe it is already mid-term! I feel like we literally just started last week, and although it is exciting it is sad because this is my last year. :( In class we are getting a good heads up about what is expected of us on our mid-term project, we got the criteria for what should be on our lesson plan and discussed as partners what we will be doing. We also read over a teachers reflection (story) after a lesson she taught, and we will be doing this as a follow up to our safety lesson to the class. Me and my partner, Megan, have gotten a great start, and we enjoy doing experiments, so we are excited to show the class what we have come up with!

online assignment day!!

Today we had an online assignment, which we all appreciate not having to go to class every once in awhile-- :) The online science experiments were very fun, creative ideas that we can all use in our classes some day! I like having good websites for lesson plans and class examples and stuff, I am thinking I need to start putting them in my portfolio so I always have them. The paper airplane experiment is one I remember doing, and all kids of all ages have fun making air planes. Overall, the website had great ideas for us future teachers.

reflection writing

Todays class involved a lot of discussion about the mid term project, which will be a class presentation invloving a movie show, which I have never done before, so it should be interesting. After discussion we did an interesting lab, using a index card we stabbed a pencil through, we used mirrors to see what we were writing since the index cards were blocking us from seeing our letters. This is kind of hard to explain in words, but it felt like a disability when doing the activity. I was not very good at this activity, everything I tried drawing was backwards, krooked, or sloppy, everything but right, but I really enjoyed the experience and I really think kids of all levels would enjoy!

mystery box activity

Today's class was a lot of fun, I really enjoy getting to do group work. This class always seems to go by fast because we do more than just lectures. The mystery box activity is something I really think young kids would enjoy, it reminded me of when I was younger and we had to smell into a bag and predict what the smell was. It really get kids minds flowing, as well as ours, when we can't see something. It almost gives a sense of being blind, having to just feel and listen to try to find out what something is. During the experiment I thought is seemed like they were all marbles, and they were, but I also noticed them not sounding the same when hitting all sides but I didn't know what it was. After we got to discuss it and look inside it was fun to see if our predictions were true. Another thing I liked was the fact that we got to draw our ideas on poster boards, children like getting to doodle and such, instead of just writing their observations on paper as usual, so that was a great idea I will take with me.

online assignment

So...what ever happened to class just being canceled, it seems like within the last two years of college that if class gets canceled then we have an even bigger homework assignment to make up. I don't know if it was just me but those questions took me like three hours to do, but the reading took up that time as well. However now that I am finished I am glad I did it because I learned a lot with reading about other teachers experiences with case studies. Taking time to answer quesions is time consuming, but it helps me to acutally obtain the information, so in the end it was probably a good idea to get some knowledge out of the classroom setting. :)