Chronicles of a Newbie: My Student Teaching Adventure: Week 11

Fun with Line Segments

This past week I started a new unit/topic in math (we're finally finished with fractions!) and we're currently learning about 2-dimensional shapes... which is a cakewalk in comparison. I found some fun videos on Youtube that explained the concepts so I could differentiate the lesson for the more visual and auditory learners. My seminar instructor came in to observe me during the lesson and the kids did such a great job participating and being great listeners while she was there! I was happy with how everything went. My favorite part of the lesson (and I'm sure the kids would agree) was when we sang the Line Segment Song, which you can listen to here. The tune was really catchy and they were singing along and kept asking me to play it over again. My mentor teacher took a video of us, check it out! They're so funny.

The students learned about lines, rays, line segments, points, intersecting lines, and parallel lines. I gave the kids a worksheet in which they had to label the different pictures and one answer in particular made my mentor teacher and I laugh.

Those are "interesting lines" ...glad he thought so! ;) Oh, the hilarity of misspelled words.

Humans in Space

We also had a few other Skype sessions this past week. We did a mystery Skype with Michigan, a mystery Skype with Nebraska, and then on Friday the entire third grade participated in the NASA Discovery Learning Network's program, Humans in Space. We Skyped with Mr. David Mazza from the John Glenn Research Center in Cleveland, and he taught us about what it is like to live on the International Space Station. We got to watch a few videos, and the kids were able to ask questions. It was so great! If you are interested in seeing more pictures of Friday's video conference, you can check out my mentor teacher's class blog and follow the links. http://passionatelearners.blogspot.com/

Birthday Party Fiasco!

So, I was invited to one of my student's birthday parties this weekend, and let me tell you, it turned out to be an occasion for the books! I decided it would be fun to pop in for a bit and celebrate... when I showed up, the kids were off the wall! Hyped up on soda and snacks, they had a blast (to say the least) and it reminded me of why teachers have weekends off... haha, I can honestly say though that I'm glad I went. My students were pretty excited that myself and their old student teacher, Jessica Hall, showed up together. Anyway, one of my other students who was at the party accidentally locked herself in the bathroom and the door got stuck. We were trying to pry the door open, and even Jessica (who is a Umaine Hockey player) couldn't break down the door despite her efforts to body check it. We ended up calling the fire department, who came in and kicked the door down. Everyone was fine, nobody was hurt, and we all had a good laugh. The birthday boy was pumped to have a fire truck and firemen at his party!