Is this Oh-pa-coo??

This week our little kiddos did double duty when we combined 2 lessons, light transmissivity and luster, into one! Fortunately it was a good combo because both lessons involved the use of light pens and similar materials (foil, wax paper, etc) were needed. The great part is that next week we'll be able to wrap up our unit with the final lesson in which the students identify the minerals based on all the information they have gathered during each activity! It should prove to be pretty exciting for the students and us as well!

We had a lot of difficult vocabulary in this lesson, so we had the students make their own definitions for the words; opaque, translucent, transparent, metallic, waxy, glassy, and dull after demonstrating each of these properties with a flashlight and different materials (wax paper, aluminum foil, glass, cardboard, etc). This really gave the students a better understanding of the concepts, and after we wrote their definitions on chart board paper, we hung them on the board so students could refer to them while doing the light and luster tests. We also used a great tip from Bindu, which was to have the students repeat back the directions to us so we know that they understand what to do and so their peers can hear the directions in their own words. It was great to hear the students saying, "I think this mineral is translucent!" But the best was when a student asked me if a mineral was "oh-pa-coo" (opaque), too cute!

To incorporate engineering and technology connections into our lesson, we made sure to explain how to use the tools (in this lesson it was the pen-lights) correctly and how these tools helped identify the mineral properties of light transmissivity and luster. We also had students read about the industrial and tech applications and uses of minerals which were printed at the end of their Rock & Mineral journals.

Overall I think the lesson was pretty successful and during the conclusion Tracey and I were impressed with their use of the vocabulary and observations when they shared their results. Can't wait for next week!!

What is flaky, hard, and smells like rotten eggs?

Stale cheese bread? No....













An old episode of American Idol? Maybe..........





Minerals?!! Yes, that's what!

This week our students observed and recorded 3 different physical properties of all 12 mineral samples; appearance, texture, and smell. Completing this task along with an introduction and conclusion within 45 minutes was not easy, so time management was a big concern during this lesson. Fortunately we kept our intro and conclusion short and used the classroom chimes to usher students along from mineral to mineral every few minutes and they were able to complete their recordings on time. In fact, the lesson went so smoothly and well that we felt it was our BEST LESSON EVER!! yay!!
This week we were also being observed by our professors on the following items; content vocabulary, flow, and misconceptions identified. For vocabulary we introduced the words texture, which students understood as what something feels like; and metallic (in terms of smell) and Tracey gave the great example of how pennies or coins smell. Another word that became a vocab word was one I had given as an example of a possible texture; flaky. I hadn't anticipated that students might not know this word, so after more then one group of students asked me what it meant, I made sure to go over it with every group ( I suggested to think of flaky piece of bread because I thought phyllo dough or croissant might be a whole other set of vocab words) and I pointed out Muscovite (mica) as an example.

Because there were so many materials to be passed out to each group and we wanted to give students as much time as possible to record their observations, I passed out all the materials while Tracey gave the introduction. If they hadn't had indoor recess beforehand, I could have done it then, but this strategy worked just as well because when students returned to their seats, there materials were all there for them ready to go (and no time was lost on material distribution). We also used the chimes again to signal to students when they should be finishing their recordings on one mineral and moving on to the next. We felt this really helped with time management, especially because there was very little time to complete all 12 observations.

At the end of the lesson we introduced the word misconception, which became another vocab word, but the students quickly understood it to mean something that they think to be true but really isn't. When we asked the students if they had any misconceptions about minerals before the lesson they were able to give many great examples, so we knew they understood not only the word misconception, but had also learned a lot from the lesson itself!

I was also impressed with how well students worked in pairs and took their tasks very seriously! Students discussed their results together and and compared with other partners as well. They also wafted instead of sniffed and always kept their minerals in their gloved hand--- little geologists in the making!! I think it was a lot of fun for the students, and it was a lot of fun for us because we're feeling more comfortable and confident in the classroom.

And Now, Introducing Minerals! Yay!!!

So this week my science partner Tracey and I introduced minerals to our 4th grade class and the students were even more excited than we were about them! There were 12 minerals in all, but we had the students focus on just the first 3; feldspar, quartz and pyrite. Because pyrite is toxic, we required the students to wear a plastic glove while holding all the minerals as a safety precaution, but unfortunately the plastic gloves caused a lot of sweaty hands! Other than that, I felt we had another fun and successful lesson for our little geologists!

Our professors observed our lesson and evaluated us this week based on Classroom Management, Process Skills, and Lesson Conclusion.

I felt our classroom management was a little off this week, but who knew hand-washing would throw such a kink in our lesson flow?! Having students wash their hands after using gloves while observing the minerals caused not only a traffic jam at the sink, students who were finished to be off-task, but it also wasted precious instructional time as well. Our classroom teacher suggested that next time the students either wash their hands after the lesson or not at all (since their hands were already gloved). The other issue seemed to be that our instructions were not simple or explicit enough and our classroom teacher had to interrupt a few times to remind students of what they should be doing. We thought we had really explained and modeled the directions clearly, but I think we need to simplify instructions a bit more and make them more step by step (rather than all at once).

For process skills we felt that we incorporated many process skills into the lesson including raising questions, predicting, hypothesizing, observation, investigation, interpreting evidence, and communicating/reflecting. What we learned is that we should have chosen just one of the skills to introduce to the students and explain and demonstrate it for them.

For our lesson conclusion we brought students back to the rug to discuss their observations of the 3 minerals and how they compared to the rocks we had previously observed, as well as their previous ideas about what a mineral was, and if they answered any of their own questions about minerals. Because hand-washing was so time consuming, we weren't able to read an excerpt about feldspar or take many student questions, but we asked students to try to think of some questions and bring them in next week.

The positive aspects of the lesson I felt were: the student's excitement and enthusiasm about minerals, our lesson planning and flow (other than the delay with hand-washing), keeping students on-task and engaged, and encouraging the use of science process skills (if not directly, but indirectly). Again I was impressed with student's prior knowledge about minerals and their observations were very impressive as well. Overall I'd say it was a good lesson that could have been a bit smoother had their not have been so many sweaty little hands and only one sink!