"So now Sweet 16's turned 31" ~Bob Seger
My mom called my name as I was getting out of the shower at 5:30 this morning - "Em, 95's closed...Happy Birthday!" Yup - 95 North was completely closed due to an accident - all traffic was being rerouted to Route 1 - 4 lanes of highway traffic onto Route 1. Yikes!
I decided to wait it out until they opened up 95, so I didn't leave until 6:45 - which is about a half hour later than I usually leave. But, I got to hang out with my dad for a bit this morning, so that was fun!
I made it to school in pretty good time, and was pleasantly surprised by the ride. I took Route 1 from Plainville to Dedham - the scenery was marvelous. The leaves were brilliant in the morning sun, and I passed by lakes that glistened and were covered in a haze of fog. I finished up the rest of my PPA+ and dropped it off at the office. All of the teachers were sweet and wished me a happy birthday, and one of the female student from another class - who gives me a hug every day - gave me a super-cute homemade birthday card.
My lesson was on conductors and insulators of electricity. I started off the lesson with SCIENCE THEATRE! - a live action enactment of electricity going through a conductor, then being blocked by an insulator. I had students play a battery, electricity, electrons, and a light bulb. An additional student was used to announce the scenes as "Material A" and "Material B". I picked the students based on their social behavior in previous classes - half of the students were well behaved, while the others were more "active" than others. I figured that it would be good to give those students a positive way to focus their energy in class, as well as to receive positive attention as opposed to negative attention for being disruptive. I also gave the most prominent part - electricity - to the student who is most challenged by the science material. He LOVED being the center of attention, and star of the science lesson.
Each of the students wore a xeroxed piece of paper that had an image that represented their material/science theatre part. So, the battery had a giant battery on a piece of paper, the electrons had giant circles with subtraction marks, and the light bulb was a light bulb. The students ate it up and hammed it up! Once the scenes were completed, I had the rest of the class join us in the meeting area to discuss what just happened. Why did electricity go through one material but not the other?
I updated Amy's PowerPoint and added the Simpson's Professor Fink a the "host" of the presentation. Professor Fink has a distinctive voice that is fun to imitate - so I had students take turns reading the PowerPoint presentation while doing an impersonation. They LOVED it!
After the presentation, students handed out definitions for conductors and insulators. I had them divide and conquer (a skill they are learning in language arts) the definition sheet by highlighting and underlining the important words. After that, I handed out bags filled with materials that conduct or insulate electricity. The students used a graphic organizer to predict if the materials were conductors or insulators, then they built simple circuits to test the materials. After they recorded their results, we reviewed their findings as a whole class. They then went out to recess and I stayed inside to review my lesson with my supervisor.
The students who acted in the science theatre kept their xerox tags on for the whole lesson.
To summarize her results - it was a slam dunk! She actually said, "If I didn't know, I would have thought that you had been teaching for ten years!" AWESOME!!! Not bad feedback for my first day of 31...
For lunch, the teachers bought pizza for everyone. It was so sweet! During lunch, Ms. Conrad asked that I cover her last class - she needed to leave to take care of an urgent issue. No problemo!
Her class is filled with adorable students. They were excited to have me teach a lesson - they see me everyday, but rarely have me in their class because I rotate with my class. The student who gave me a birthday card spread the word that it was my birthday - so the whole class sang happy birthday to me! A great way to end the day!
Oh, and a few of the students who acted in the science theatre kept their xerox tags on for the whole day. They just happened to be the students who typically act out in class.
When I got home, my dad and I celebrated the beautiful weather by sitting out in the side yard and watched the golden hour sun reflect on the changing leaves.
For dinner, my parents, brother and his fiance all went to dinner at a new restaurant in our downtown. Very fun times. We then went home and cut cake - after which I promptly went to bed!
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