Kangaroo's

It's Friday! And of course, that means time to teach a science lesson to little hyper second graders. But really, I do love that class. The children are adorable and the answers they give are hilarious, even though I have to keep a straight face.  I love when they run up to give us little hugs when they first see us and then when we leave again.

So today's lesson, as I bet you can tell by the title, is about the life cycle of a Kangaroo!  I joined education.com for free! It's seriously one of the best sites for teachers. FREE worksheets and activities on almost anything!

After teaching a basic lesson on Kangaroo's through a PowerPoint, after we show a video from Animal Planet.  I love how this worksheet allows the student to cut out the little circles of each part of the cycle and they can glue it in order.  And of course, there should be a little writing in this activity, so basic little facts and notes about each part of the life cycle will be written next to each circle.

Here's two screen shots of the worksheet that is being used!

 

The Frog's Life Cycle Activity

This semester, I am in a class called "Science and Children".  For this class, we are required to go into a classroom and teach a science lesson, one day a week.  For this class, we are also in groups that we teach with.  It helps to make managing the class and answering questions just a little bit easier.

Our host teacher is having us teach about a different animal's life cycle every week.  For our first lesson, we decided to teach about the life cycle of the frog.  Let me just say that I love Pinterest. I know I've said it before, but it has great lesson ideas!  So we found this lesson about the frog's life cycle and an activity to go with it.

We were able to show a PowerPoint about the different stages of the life cycle and complete this activity with them.  They loved being able to color their frog with bright colors, just like the photos we had shown them earlier.

This lesson was simple and they really enjoyed it.  We also had them write a few facts about each stage on each pannel of the frog as well, just so they would have more detail in their own book about the frog life cycle.

Teaching Lessons

Teaching lessons to my classmates is probably one of the most awkward things I will ever do in college. Granted, I know everyone in my education classes and we're all in the same boat, but still. I feel like there is more pressure when teaching my peers rather than a classroom full of little eyes staring at you. There is just something about knowing that the people in your class participating in your lesson as your "students", are judging you on how you taught your lesson and how you kept "the students" engaged.

In one of my classes, a music class, after we had taught our lesson to the whole class, my professor had my classmates critique us. That was definitely nerve-racking! Luckily, she thought I was a music major!  (PHEW! Thanks mom and dad for making me learn how to play piano!)

However, at the same time, it's great practice and I guess if you can do it in front of your peers, you can do it in front of the children.