Half Way There {Teach} On the Block! #Week7

Students creating the Digestion System

When I was in high school I loved half days and teacher in service days. No school, no pressure... Or so I thought! Now that the tables have turned and I am on the other side of the desk, these days put my lesson plans and scheduled plans on stress overload. This week I had two half days because of parent teacher conferences and no school on Friday due to professional development workshops for teachers. Side note: We did NOT celebrate FFA week this week due to the fact that Saul does their own celebrations later on in the month of March!

Without further ado, lets break down week 7!

Pros: Even though the days were short and there was still work that needed to be done, I am proud of my accomplishments getting the class on track to reach my personal goals for the week. I am going to break up my pros this week by class!

Animal Science: Although the week was short, it was perfect time for me to try out an inquiry based lab for my 10^th graders about the digestion system. We were working on the monogastric system for the past week and I thought to tie it all together they could show me the system with simple items such as crackers, soda, bowls, spoons, a plastic baggie and a pair of nylons. I am SO happy that it worked out and it pushed me as a teacher to ask those questions to make my students dig deep and think about the answers without me giving it to them!

Environmental Science: My students used to hate going outside. They would whine, complain, and sometimes not even participate. This week however, they wanted to go outside. Thoughts: What was in the water?! When they all told me they wanted to go outside, I was able to get really creative with my lessons and do some hands on activities to tie in my soil lessons with actual...soil! A lot of fun and a lot of learning this week!

Cons: This week was a great learning experience for me to get my head in the game and focus on teaching with limited amounts of time. The only con that I have this week is the limited time that I wasted due to getting students on track on those half days. Focus and attention activities needed to be adopted on those days to get my students on track!

Overall, this week was nothing to complain over! In the teaching world you will always have those good and bad days, but focusing on the good has been keeping me in check!

Student teaching is half way done and I can’t wait to see what is going to happen in week 8!