The Butterflies Make Their Arrival

          When we got to class today, the kids had exciting new for us.....the butterflies had emerged from their chrysalis!
For the lesson, we had the kids listen to a C.D. of The Very Hungry Caterpillar by Eric Carle. For a writing assignment, we had the students write similarities and differences between their caterpillars and the caterpillar in the story.
           For our next activity, we discussed the parts of a butterfly, which went really well since many of the parts were similar to the parts of the chrysalis that we had done last week. When the kids got back from recess, we handed out the science journals and had the students write a few observations about the caterpillars coming out of their chrysalis.

          I felt that I didn't do as well during this lesson that I have done in the past, but Paige assured me that it went well and she thought I did great. This made me feel MUCH better! Mrs. S had nothing but good things to say about our lesson also, so this made me feel better too. It's sad that our time with the butterflies is coming to a close, but this has been a great experience and I can't wait to have a classroom of my own!

How Fast They Grow...

    When Paige and I walked into the classroom today, we didn't know if we'd see caterpillars, J-shape, or chrysalis, so we went in prepared for all 3! When we walked in, all of the caterpillars were in a chrysalis!
  One of our focuses this week was vocabulary, so Paige and I planned a great lesson on labeling the parts of a chrysalis. We wrote the vocabulary on the board, had it on an overhead projector, and had the students write it on the caterpillar. The kids learned many new words, such as abdomen, silk button, and proboscis. Another focus for this week was our focus on a misconception. Many children think the little black things in the bottom of the cup are eggs that the caterpillar has laid, but caterpillars actually do not lay eggs! That black stuff on the bottom is FRASS, or caterpillar poop!
Finally, the last thing being addressed this week was the flow of the class. I think this is something that Paige and I excel in every week. We work great together as a team, we're on top of who is doing what job, and we bounce ideas off of each other. All of these things help to make the lesson a success! We had a really fun lesson with the kids this week!

Caterpillars, cAtErPiLlArS, CATERPILLARS!

This week Paige and I finally got to introduce the students to their caterpillars! We left it as a big surprise so it was really great to see the excitement when we made our big reveal!

This week our focus was on classroom management, science process skill, and lesson conclusion. We did better on some aspects than others, but overall the lesson was a big success.
When it came to classroom management, our cooperating teacher took the lead. There may have been some miscommunication and she thought this was what we wanted. Since we are guests in the classroom, Paige and I felt uncomfortable being assertive and taking over, so we just went with the flow. This is not the only method of classroom management, and we did do well in other aspects; we had all of our materials ready to go, we helped the children with smooth transitions, and we circulated the room and answered every question. I don't think it was a complete failure.
The next focus point was the process skill. We focused on collecting data and this went absolutely great! The students were really excited to look at their caterpillars with their hand lenses and write down all of their observations.

Finally, we emphasized our conclusion. We fell flat last week with this aspect, so Paige made sure that it got done today. We told the kids that they could continue to make observations every day while we are not there and they can tell us all about it next week! Even though today didn't go exactly as planned, I think Paige and I did a really great job and hopefully it will be even better next week!