Reflection: Science – Primary colors

On the 2nd of October 2018, I taught my first lesson which was Science. Before starting the lesson,

I began by introducing myself and moving on to taking attendance as a whole group and singing

the “Hello” song along with its action moves. To give the students an idea about what they’ll be

learning today, I played the Primary colors song which was showed them what happens when two

colors are mixed (Red, Blue, and Yellow).

At the circle time area, to create interest I placed three plastic jars that were half filled with milk.

Following this step, I added a few drops of each food coloring in a jar (Red, Blue, and Yellow)

while asking the students what they think will happen such as “What will happen if we mix

two/three of these colors together?” or “What color will we get if we mix blue with yellow? We

get the color GREEN”. These types of questions will allow students to develop/improve their

scientific thinking skills. This activity requires them to observe closely, predict, and compare.

After mixing a few colors together, as well as the three colors together to form the color black. I

distributed students in groups, 3-4 students will be chosen to come and sit at the Science Center

while the rest of the students will be working with Ms. Ebtihal and sitting in different learning

areas. As for the students that were working with me, they spent their time fingerprinting and

mixing the primary colors and answering questions that were directed at them.

This was the first time that the children were taught this type of concept considering that the new

MOE curriculum didn’t include teaching Science and Math, only English. I feel that I grabbed

their attention during introduction and active engagement pretty well despite the lessons that are

taught by teachers don’t have a closing time. For the assessment, I used formative assessment by
asking students questions during introduction and guided experience and collecting their work

samples. I think the students responded positively due to this being a new and different lesson.

Students don’t usually see a teacher bringing in equipment’s such as food coloring to the classroom

and allowing them to come and swirl the jar independently with of course the teachers’ supervision.

The reason I chose this activity is that I agree with John Dewey’s theory which is that students

learn by doing. I believe that my lesson met my teaching goals when I allowed students to

experience and be part of hands-on experiential learning. Students were able to recognize colors

and after a few weeks have passed, students came up to me and began saying things like: “Teacher,

if we mix the color red with yellow, we get the color orange!”. “Give the pupils something to do,

not something to learn; and the doing is of such a nature as to demand thinking; learning naturally

results.” (Dewey, J. 1916).