October 30

Today's class we finished the midterm lesson plans. Their was another experiment on Oublic, which involved making a suspension out of cornstarch and water to see the outcome. Carrie and Ashley did an activity on taste buds, which was fun when we got to eat jelly beans. Aaron, Brandon, and myself did an activity with balloon rockets, which I thought went well outside of it taking too much time to set up in the beginning. I thought Jessica and Ryan's presentation on magic mud was fun, and also taught students about suspensions. I thought it was fun to see a lot of lesson plans that are cheap to do, since sometimes the teacher might have to pick up the tab for the equipment.

October 28

Today's class was not very productive due to technical difficulties. We started with Maddy and McKenzie. The did a presentation called elephant toothpaste. It involved adding certain materials to dry yeast and predicting and observing what happened when we mixed the materials together. Nate and Ashley were next with a lesson plan on what happens to bird feathers when put in water and then in oil. This would be a good experience to show junior high students what happens during oil spills. Elly and Lourie had us make Oublic. Brittany, Brianna, and Andrea discussed bottle rockets and the many saftey precautions needed for the making and experiment with the rockets.

October 23

There were several groups that presented today. There were 5 groups total and each group had something different to bring to the class for discussion. The first group did their lesson plan on mixtures and what mixtures are. We watched a video on how to make Cherry Jello, and then we made Jello ourselves in class. Becca and Catie did such a great job on explaining things and made the time learning about Jello fun. Kelli and Angie did a presentation of sinking or floating and making a prediction on what object will sink or float. Mallory and Lindsey did their presentation on habitats and the different kinds of habitats. They brought in books that were kid friendly to learn about the different habitats in the world. The also had a video of the putting together their own habitat and the presentation was great. I thought that this group really put forth effort and tried to impress the class with their art skills. Brooke and Megan did the experiment to show that oil and water don't mix. Then they placed food coloring in the glass and then the students had to watch the reaction of what happened in the glass. The final group, Whitney and Danielle talked about living and non living things and then we quickly did a collage of living things on one side and non living things on the other.

October 21

In class today, we discussed different ways to have discussions and the different types of talk in the classroom. There are six types of talk moves which are: Re-voicing, asking students to restate someone elses' reasoning, asking students to apply their own reasoning to someone elses' reasoning, prompting students for further participation, asking students to explicate their reasoning, and using wait time. These were all good strategies for getting students to discuss, in depth, about a topic. We discussed proper classroom talk and the many benefits to create deeper meanings for the students. The students provide insight for the teacher to asses what the students already know and how they think in a organized, productive manner. We also did a project about using air pressure to move a ping pong ball from one glass to another. This would be a good activity for force,wind current, or air pressure. It makes you think of different answers and how to think more in-depth on the subject.