My first official lesson and class presentation!

Last week I had the opportunity to give a presentation and lesson!

The presentation was related to the students’ lesson on volcanoes. As I recently had the wonderful opportunity to visit Volcanoes National Park in Hawaii, I created a display board with some of my pictures from Kilauea, an active volcano, along with pictures of types of lava and maps of lava flows dating back to 1940. The students were very eager for my presentation, which made me feel even more excited to share with them. I asked them questions about what they had learned about volcanoes as well as what they may like to know. We discussed the history of Kilauea, including the Thurston Lava Tube, the Volcano House, Halem’aum’ua, and Pele, the mythical Hawaiian goddess of fire (as Kilauea is believed to be her home). Overall I think it was a great! The students had been asking me all kinds of personal questions up to this point, and now I got to share something personal yet educational with them. The only think I was not prepared for was this one little girl challenging me about why people believed in Pele. I tried to explain that it was similar to why the ancient Greeks believed in their gods and goddesses, but she was quite persistent. (On a side note, I was surprised to learn that a few of the students knew about some Greek mythological creatures, gods, and goddesses.) My CT finally interjected and told her that the lesson was not about mythology and to reserve her questions for a later time. Although at the moment I was relieved that she ended the serious of questions, while reflecting on the situation I could have turned the tables on the student and asked her why she thought it was not logical to believe in a mythical creature, or why she felt so intrigued by ancient beliefs, or if she would give me a possible reason as to why people believe in mythology. Hopefully, I will be better prepared if there is a next time.

My second presentation was an actual lesson, poetry to be exact. As it is nearing Halloween, I wanted to focus on that as a topic. However, being fully aware that not everyone celebrates Halloween I chose to focus on the feeling of Halloween and therefore was able to not mention it directly. I chose a spooky poem entitled “The Poltergeist” to read. It did not mention Halloween, was not too scary or gory, and did not mention the words spirit or dead (I thought these may be sensitive words to some and chose to avoid them). I gave each student a copy of the poem after I read it and asked them to look it over for some words they may not have recognized, unbeknownst to them I had a prepared list of words and definitions that I thought would be new to them – and it was quite accurate! After going over the new vocabulary, we talked about the AABB format of the poem and the rhyming aspect.

I then introduced to them that I would like for them to write their own spooky poem about any traditional monster they chose. I explained that the more spooky synonyms they used the more eerie the poem would be. We then as a class brainstormed some spooky words and I wrote them on the over head. Then I asked them about some things that they found spooky. Well, I wasn’t quite prepared to get answers like Chucky, Freddy Kruger, Michael, Jason, and the like. My Ct helped in bringing them back to naming more traditional (that was her word, and a great one at that) monsters like vampires and werewolves. Both the class and I had fun with this brainstorm; even my CT raised her hand with suggestions. When she did I asked the class, “Should we see what suggestion Mrs. M has?”, an enthusiastic “YES” resounded.

Mrs. M also made another good suggestion to write two lines with the class as a whole. We chose a sea monster known as the Kraken (thank you Pirates of the Caribbean) for our class sentences. Our first sentence was very creepy, but then we got a bit off track. They started to give me silly sentences instead of spooky ones. The last sentence I got was still a bit silly with no rhyme. To avoid continuing in this silly fashion I complimented the student on their idea and said, “Let’s see if we can take that same thought and make it spooky and rhyme.” This worked like a charm. Shortly after, the students began to write their own spooky poems. My CT and I walked around the class making sure they were on the right track. A few had missed the lesson because they were in an ELL class so we sat together in the back of the room I gave them their own personal mini-lesson. It was great to see their enthusiasm. I think even my CT was excited to see how into the poem writing they were.

I did however learn a few things from this lesson. First, I found myself allowing the students to call out ideas instead of having them wait for me to call on them. I did not find this to be a big deal in the moment, however, my CT pointed it out and I can see where this may cause a future discipline problem if I continue to conduct class in this fashion. My CT also felt that they were getting to noisy and therefore not paying attention at certain points. I know there may have been times where this was the case, but I also noticed that some were reading the poem aloud to themselves or trying to find a rhyme by saying the words. If this were my class, I would not see a problem with this behavior because the talking was related to the lesson at hand and not interfering with the class learning as a whole. I also think I could have prepared a worksheet for them, including the directions I gave verbally and an outline of the poem format. As I was helping the students I saw some writing in paragraphs, others wrote big and I could not tell were one line ended and another began. A worksheet may have helped them organize their poem better. I may also create a brainstorming sheet with one half focusing on the monster and its characteristics and the other on synonyms for spooky. This would have been a great reference for them and assisted them in focusing their ideas. I would also spent a little time on rhyming, maybe just a little demonstration on how I sometimes choice a rhyme. I write my first sentence and then think about how I substitute different letters in front of a word to help find one that rhymes.

I can’t wait until I get to read their poems and further develop their ideas.