The lesson that Molly taught this week at prairie creek to her 2/3 Egrets class, was about using observations as evidence for changes that are happening around us. The objectives for this lesson were to write down observations in a science notebook, make hypotheses about the changes happening based on evidence, and finally, just to walk around and be aware of the changes we notice around us. Molly’s warm up to the lesson was the have all the students sit in a circle in the big field outside with their science notebooks. She asked the class what they thought their notebooks were for and one of them responded “It is our science notebook so we are going to be making observations and recording them!” Molly said that this was exactly right and then starting asking students what they noticed.

Molly “cold calls”, but it does not feel like a cold call in the same way that I would say my professors cold call. It makes the students feel seen and like their answers and observations are important and worth being heard by the class. The students are enthusiastic to answer Molly when she calls on them, even if they did not have their hand up. By asking students what they noticed around them, Molly was able to get the conversation about changes and evidence started as a group. The students began to make hypotheses about what changes were happening that they had evidence for. For example, one student noticed that the 4/5 class was building a fire and when asked what this could mean, hypothesized that this meant it was getting colder outside. By getting the conversation going and making sure all the students knew what they were supposed to do, Molly was then able to release students in pairs to go make observations and record them in their science notebooks.

By allowing students to work independently from her, Molly fosters intrinsic motivation because students are able to follow their own interests. Some students wrote out their observations while others drew them. Some went towards the woods, while others went towards the corn field.

The activities:

Talk as a group 5-10 minutes

Split up into pairs and make observations independently 10 minutes

Share observations in small groups 5 minutes

Make more observations 10 minutes

Sit down and share observations full group 5 minutes

Molly concluded the lesson by having the class sit down again and calling on certain students to share observations they wrote down. Molly moved onto her next lesson pretty swiftly as she could see her students losing interest. The next lesson was to read a book about compost and rot.

Molly is very intentional in her lesson structure. She makes sure to take time to explain to Kara and I why she makes certain decisions. For example, she had the students share with one another their observations and she said that this was a great way for them to be able to learn from each other and practice reading their writing. The lesson encouraged independence and exploration while working in a lot of important standards such as writing and scientific observation/hypotheses. The lesson was very successful. Students were very engaged and seemed to be enjoying making as many observations as they could. I tagged along with two students that I knew were behind in the class and may need some extra support being guided through the assignment. I was able to prompt them in their observations and ask them specifically what these observations could mean in terms of “changes”. This allowed them to get more out of the lesson than if they had been on their own.

Other than this fun lesson, I also got to observe all-school gathering at Prairie Creek. This week, the students played soccer together. Prairie Creek just adopted a new PE curriculum and the theme for the past month has been soccer. All students have been learning how to pass, stop the ball, and dribble. Students got in their “bird band” groups which means two 4/5s, two 2/3s, and two K/1s altogether. It always amazes me how amazing the 4/5s lead the groups of younger kids and guide them through the lesson, in this case, soccer drills. The older kids encouraged the younger kids and walked them through the drills. It was great to see the whole school out playing soccer on the field.