Science in my Clinical Classroom

SCIENCE FOCUS
Having spent eleven weeks in TCH 276, you have gained so much knowledge about science in the early childhood classroom. You will hopefully have also observed science instruction in your clinical classroom. Draw on this knowledge and these experiences in this discussion.

What have you noticed about science instruction and assessment in your setting?

·         When does it take place? Does it take place? Think critically.

·         What does it encompass?

·         During science instruction, what does your CT do/ say?

·         What do students do/ say? How do they respond?

·         What are your opinions/ feelings about this?

·         How does what you observe about science at this site connect with past clinical experiences/ early childhood theories/ and or science practices you have been learning about at ISU?

·         How does knowing this inform what you will do when teaching and assessing science (either this semester, next semester in student teaching, and/or next year)?

What other additional reflections/ concerns/ questions/ musings do you have after spending these last few weeks on the site? Use your own experiences, especially those from your activity log for the last few weeks.

So far in my clinical classroom, I haven’t really seen very much science, at least not the science that I remember doing as a child. What I have seen in relation to science is them working through packets. Each new unit in science they get a big booklet with different activities for them to work on. Right now they are transitioning from dinosaurs to their weather unit. I looked through their dinosaur booklet, and it seemed to mostly encompass informational texts about different dinosaurs that they can read about, connect the dot activities, coloring worksheets, math worksheets, vocabulary worksheets, etc. During instruction of other activities, such as during math, my CT will tell the students to work on their math activity, and to pull out their dinosaur packet when they have finished and work on whatever page they choose. This seems to be a good use of classroom management.

I have also seen a heavy integration with literacy. On their last unit of Penguins, they did a lot of informational readings with penguins; learning about the different kinds of penguins, what they do, where they live, how they live, what they eat, etc. The students really seemed to enjoy what they were learning. They would mostly focus on pulling important information from the text. Another way that literacy was integrated was through their read aloud. Every day after lunch, my CT would read a different story about penguins to the children. She would choose higher leveled texts to read aloud to them to help to challenge them. She has done the same thing during their dinosaur unit; she is reading a chapter book called The Dinosaur Egg to the children; she reads a chapter each day after lunch. I don’t know how well this is working because as I observe during the read aloud, many of the students aren’t paying attention to the story and when she stops to ask questions, only the higher leveled children are usually able to answer the questions.

In our literacy classes, we have learned that according to the common core, over 50% of what we introduce to the students must be non-fiction texts. I feel that I am definitely seeing this in this classroom because almost everything that they read in the classroom is non-fiction besides their books of choice. We have also learned in our literacy classes then when choosing classroom read-alouds to choose books that are a little bit out of their reading level because it does introduce them to new vocabulary that they may not get from the books that are at their level, as well as requires a higher level of thinking for them to learn and understand a longer more difficult story line. While I am seeing this, I think this story may even be a little bit too difficult for the students because they really don’t know what is happening during the story.

Overall, I really wish I did see more science. However, I am only there once a week, so there is a huge chance that a majority of their science lessons occur on different days than on the days that I am there. I am assuming that it is still highly integrated with literacy because most of their curriculum is heavily integrated with literacy. While I think this is important, I still believe that a more hands-on approach to science is important as well.

In my future classroom, I plan to dedicate at least one day a week to a hands-on science lesson. Students at this age really need that hands on experience for them to fully understand what is going on and to get a better comprehension of these science standards that we are trying to teach them. Just teaching them through literacy doesn’t necessarily reach all of the children in the classroom, and many of them will end up falling behind and not understand these crucial aspects of science.

This is a pinterest board that I found that has a lot of great ideas related to hands-on science that I found to be beneficial for a 2^nd grade classroom.

http://www.pinterest.com/jrosher/2nd-grade-science/

Enjoy your week J