Last Wednesday, Shannon and I taught our second lesson. I was very excited to get to teach about dragonflies, and I thought that the activities that we prepared would be fun and engaging for the students. I was a little nervous, however, because Dr. Mayer was going to be observing us teaching. The main thing that I was trying to work on personally in this lesson was slowing down, because in my first lesson I talked WAY too fast and wound up completing my lesson more quickly than I needed to.
During our lesson, the kids seemed really engaged and seem to enjoy it. We knew that they had been studying lots of different kinds of insects in their science class, so we tried to tie into what they already knew and build upon that. During Shannon's part of the lesson, she read them a story about dragonflies and then led them in a discussion about the life cycle of dragonflies. During my portion, I talked with them about dragonflies' body parts and then had them create their own dragonflies out of play-dough. They loved the activity, and it was so much fun to watch them create their little insects!
When I conferenced with Dr. Mayer on Friday, she complimented our lesson and told me that we kept the students engaged the entire time with our frequent questioning. She also said that she liked the activities we chose. One thing she suggested for me to do differently next time was to model the play-dough creations for the students ahead of time, because one child in the class seemed a little confused about what he was expected to do, however I was able to remedy that by giving him a little bit of individual attention.
Something I found amusing that I wanted to include for everyone's entertainment: When Shannon was reading the book in the car that morning, (since I had checked it out from the library, she hadn't seen it yet) she noticed a page discussing the dragonflies having intercourse. The page went something like, "hello dancing dragonflies...your dance sparks new life..." and after laughing for a good five minutes, we decided to tape the pages together so that we wouldn't have to answer any uncomfortable questions. We still aren't sure what the appropriate age to read something like this would be. Any suggestions?
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I don't know about dancing dragonflies sparking new life...but my students read a story about bees today and part of the story dealt with mating bees. One little boy explained that "mate" meant the drone (male bee) wanted to marry the queen bee. I simply said yes and moved on. The conversation turned interesting when he then proceeded to say that he wanted to be a prince and another little girl said she wanted to be a queen. The little boy then said that he wanted to marry her, the queen. I'm certain he was not making any innuendos about "marrying the queen" however, I found it quite humorous. I suggest you take the students suggestions about what the "dance" is and then move on...quickly.
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