Wednesday 1/27/10

V parochial school


I met with D (K), P (1), and D (3) to plan for next weeks lesson. I spent the majority of the day Observing teachers using the Smartboard. I also downloaded the Smartnotebook software onto 2 of the computers that didn't have it and copied materials found to the 8th grade computer.

F (8 religion/SS) taught a lesson on medieval castles. She used a website with information about them and had students take turns reading them. I pulled up some pictures (from google images) of the castles for the class into a Smart notebook file.

P (5 Science) taught a lesson about animals in the rainforest ecosystem. She used a website she had found which contained pictures and descriptions of the animals. She had the students use animals they had chosen to explore the site. Students were excited to see the animals and it stirred many questions, thoughts, and ideas for them. I suggested using discovery education for videos to show the students.

K (5 SS) taught a lesson on french conquerors in the United States. She had a MS word outline of the lesson on the Smartboard for students to follow and underline important parts. As she was discussing the Mississippi river and other geographic locations I pulled up a US map for the class to see. K had students take turns coming up and tracing routes on the map. Students commented that they were "having fun but learning too".

M (2) brought her students to the computer lab for a lesson on Dinosaurs. I showed them the Smithsonian Museum's dinosaur dig website. It allows students to virtually participate in all the parts of a dinosaur dig, such as using a chisel and hammer to unearth bones. M had the students take turns coming up to the Smartboard and partipating in the dig. She and the students were very excited about this activity and figuring out which dinosaur the fossilized skeleton showed.

W (4) came down during his the student's gym period to practice using the Smartboard. I showed him how to shut it on and off, how to use the markers and eraser, and how to get to websites. We made a plan for next week to do a division activity with the students.

F (7 Science) taught a lesson using the Scientific Method online tutorial I had found. She had the students taking turns participating in the tutorial.