Back At It Again

Well the semester has just begun and once again we are hitting the ground running! I get to meet with my CE tomorrow and I am so excited about it. I know that I cannot wait for my student teaching journey to begin and I am sure that I am going to learn so much in such a short amount of time. I am proud of how far I have come on this journey and I look forward to finishing strong.

One thing that we did in class today was a short experiment about water density and buoyancy. I realized very quickly that I am definitely rusty on my science terms so that is something that I will need to be doing further research on and getting caught up on. It has been quite a while since I have been in a science class! Hopefully over the next few weeks and months that I am in science methods, I can get familiar with common scientific terms once again. I know that once I fully understand what I am talking about, I can be more confident in preparing my students for their big science EOG in fifth grade and hopefully get them interested in science outside of school as well. It was neat being able to do a hands on activity with my classmates and being able to help contribute to building different shaped boats and test their ability to stay afloat was a great way to start off class.

Since it is the first day of class, I haven't completed any outside learning information. However, I know that once I meet my CE tomorrow morning, I am going to have lots of new information that I can research on.

One specific current event that relates to science was the solar eclipse that happened earlier in the week. This is something that happened right in our students backyards! As teachers we could use this opportunity to talk about planets and orbits. Location and geography could be talked about and how different places saw different phases. You could even discuss with students about plant and animal life and how many animals reacted differently to the eclipse. It is incredibly relevant to our students since it is something that they most likely watched happened just a few days ago!

I connected the NCTCS in my learning while in class today. Under standard 3: Teachers know the content that they teach, it states that teachers make learning relevant for their students. I realized today in class that science is all around us. It's in the plants, cars, buildings, even buckets of water have so much to do with scientific learning! Relevancy is definitely something that I hope to bring into my future classroom one day to get my students excited to learn about science.

TTOTW:
 Two of my tweets this week have to deal with the first day of school. I know for Cleveland County students, their first day in on Monday. I found these two infographics great for both teachers and students.

The first tweet is the twelve questions that you should ask your students on the first day of school. I think by asking students these questions or types of questions like these, you can really get a feel for how students learn and act in a classroom setting. Then, as teachers we can respond in a way that best fits our students.

The second tweet includes some words of encouragement for our students. The first day can be stressful and students need to hear motivation from their teachers and know that we as teachers care about more than just their grades.

My third tweet this week directly relates to science. Hurricane Harvey is about to hit Texas and this is a current event that can really help teachers make science more relatable to students. By keeping up with current events, we can help students realize how science is all around us in many different ways.