Reflection on additional 2-4 lessons Lesson 1: My first lesson was an interactive read aloud using the book The

Kissing Hand by Audrey Penn. I chose to read this book to go along with our character word of the week, which was courage. I felt that my lesson was engaging and very relatable. I had the students sit on the carpet in front of me as I read. I did this for two reasons. One of those reasons being that they were to share with a partner of a tough time or situation they had been in where they needed courage or encouragement. The second reason was that prior to reading, the students were asked to look at the front cover and make predictions about the book. I did this because they have been working on making predictions in their guided reading groups. During the lesson, I again chose to have students work on prediction. I read to a certain place in the text, and then asked students what they thought the kissing hand was and how it was helpful to the main character in the book. During this part of the lesson, students were actively involved. When I asked questions about certain characters, students were eager to answer and share their opinion. After a few students shared, I would ask for other volunteers with a different opinion. I feel like this lesson was very relatable to my students everyday lives. After this lesson we had a lot of discussion about how to encourage or have courage in tough situations. For example, in the activity after the read aloud, students crafted a keepsake by tracing their hands. On the cutout of their hands, I asked students to write how they felt and had courage on the first day of school on one hand. Then, on the other hand, write some words of encouragement to upcoming fourth graders. I learned a lot about my students from this activity, and I think they learned a lot about their peers as well. All of my students participated and they seemed to enjoy the activity and lesson because it is something that is relatable to their lives. Lesson Two: The second lesson was a math lesson designed to introduce decimals to the hundredths place value and learning how to plot them on a number line. Before the lesson, we reviewed several vocabulary terms, such as decimal, tenths, and fraction. I think this strategy is very important to implement when teaching math lessons because it gets students engaged and puts their brain in math mode. A different strategy that I plan to implement in the future for my math lessons would be to begin with a story. This also helps students to quickly engage without just jumping straight into math. During this entire lesson, my students were very interactive. I asked for several volunteers throughout the lesson and they were eager to participate and write on the board. To conclude the lesson, we went over the answers to the hundreds grid handout as well as the My Math book pages. I walked around to ensure that all students

were on the right track. The total time for the lesson was about 40 minutes, which is only 5 minutes less than the usual allotted math time. Overall, I feel like this lesson was successful, but did not go as smoothly as I had planned. Math is not one of my strongest points to teach, so it was a little rough for me the first time teaching this. I do think students really enjoyed being allowed the opportunity to write on the smart board. For my next math lesson, I maybe will not take as many volunteers to answer questions. When I called more than two or three students, we tended to get off topic. I dont think calling on too many students effected their performance, rather it just took a lot longer to get them settled down so we could move on to our next activity. They were just so eager to participate and share what they were learning that I wanted to call on them all. I do think allowing them to write on the smart board helped them stay engaged, because they knew I was only going to call on those students who were paying attention and participating. But, all in all, I think students gained the knowledge they needed to gain from this lesson. Lesson 3: My third lesson was a science lesson on the desert. After the completion of this lesson, students should be able to understand that in order to certain animals to survive in their environments, they must have some type of adaption. At the beginning of the lesson, I introduced the topic of deserts by sharing some books they had in their classroom library about deserts. I think this is a good strategy because it allows students to gain interest in the subject and have some books to read during their reading time. We also discussed our prior knowledge about deserts. This was a very interactive time for the students. They shared what types of animals they believed to live in the desert, where they thought deserts were located, and what type of vegetation is in the desert. We discussed all this prior to the lesson then after the lesson we went back and entered everything into a chart and eliminated things from our list that did not belong. I engaged students in this lesson by talking about taking a trip through the desert. We discussed all the types of things we would need to take to survive. After we made a list of what we needed to survive, we then went into what we certain animals need to survive. Just as we need food, water and shelter to survive, certain animals have bodily adaptions to survive in the desert. Having my students put themselves in the situation of taking a trip to the desert really helped the students becoming interesting in what I was about to teach them. They wanted to learn how animals were able to survive since they now know what we needed to survive. I think this activity really helped them stay engaged in the lesson being taught. Lesson 4: My fourth lesson was a math lesson on angles. This lesson was very engaging for the students. I really enjoyed teaching this lesson because it got

students up and moving. To begin the lesson, we reviewed what points, lines, line segments, rays, right, obtuse and acute angles were. In order to help students better remember what parallel, perpendicular, and intersecting lines were, I used football hand motions. For example, parallel lines were the field goal signal, perpendicular lines were the time-out signal, and lastly intersecting was personal foul signal. All the students in my class have some knowledge of football, so this was very relatable for them. Since this lesson was a review lesson, it was a shorter time limit and only lasted about 20 minutes. This was the planned amount of time. In these 20 minutes, I was able to get students to use their bodies to make either a right, acute, or obtuse angle with a partner. When students use movement to apply a concept, they are more likely to remember it. That was exactly my hope for this lesson. At the conclusion of the lesson, we again reviewed what all the angles and lines were, but this time we just used small arm movements. Overall, I really think my students enjoyed this lesson because it got away from the typical, lecture and take notes, daily math lesson. According to my cooperating teacher, the students all did well on the angles and lines section of their last math test! Reflection on possibilities for Professional Development: After teaching my five lessons and going through immersion, I have set a few professional development goals for myself going into my next clinical. The main one I want to focus on is talking slower. My cooperating teacher has assured me that the students will be much more responsive when I slow down and take my time. I think once I get more comfortable in the classroom setting, the nerves will go away and that wont be that much of a problem. I think part of it is that I get so into the lesson and I already know the material and I expect my students to catch on quickly. This is not the case, so I really need to practice slowing down and pacing myself. This brings me to my next goal, pacing myself. I want to be able to fill up the allotted time without having to draw certain things out, or speed them up to meet the time. I think these first two go hand in hand. My last goal is classroom management. Sometimes my students would get really off task, and it was hard to get them back in the mindset that I needed them in. I plan on working in a school this summer, so hopefully I will pick up some new classroom management skills from experienced teachers.