Reflection 5: Teaching Experience

Cre’Shawn Owens

We were on our way to F.L. Schlagle Library for the second time. This time we were going to teach a group of twelve that were around the age of 5 years old. I statrted to get a little nervous as we got closer to the building. The reason I was scared because, I didn’t know exactly how to interact with them. As we were walking in the building I started feeling more positive about our Lesson Plan that we created. Especially when they gave us a tour and showed us where everything was at again.

When the kids came in, the first thing they did was put up their book bags and other things in their own crates. Then they sat at the table and started coloring birds. I noticed that the students already knew about some of the birds and knew the names of the birds too. These kids compared to the kids at Mcdaniel. The kids at F.L. Schlagle Library was much more faster than the students at Mcdaniel. I also noticed that the students were at the stage of “Industry vs. Inferiority”. This means that the students are at school needing to cope with new social and academic demands. The next activity we did was go on a hike and teach them about decomposition. Rachel and Kashawn led the hike. While we were walking the kids were picking up different bugs and insects to put into a container. When were close to the end of the hike, one of the kids found a turtle. Then one of the instructors picked it up and the kids wanted to see if it was boy or a girl, so we had to wait until the turtle took his head out of his shell. At the end of the hike we told all the kids to let out all the bugs out of the container, because the bugs are the ones who decompose the trees and other things in the woods.

The next activity we did was reading aloud. I led the reading part of the lesson. The book I read was called: “ Under One Rock, Bugs Slugs and Other Ughs”. While reading I asked them questions about the things that they see and what do they think was under the rock. I noticed that some kids were really interested in the book and some were saying things like, “when is this book over, and I’m ready to do something else”. I was really nervous while I was reading, because I thought the kids were going to ask me questions, that I didn’t have an answer to. Next, the kids ate dirt and worms, which were chocolate and oreos and gummy worms for their snack. The last activity we did was mud painting. Kiara led mud painting. It was very creative, and it seemed like they were actually having fun. I noticed that the girls were much more comftorable to play in the dirt than the boys were. I think overall, we did really good with our lesson plan.