Science Lesson 2: Reflection

Today's science lesson focused on review and practice of the things the students learned in the previous lesson because there was a week in between lessons and it was obvious the students hadn't fully grasped the concepts. I started by bringing out the full grown plant from our science center, pointing to each part, and calling on students to name them. I also drew each part on the white board as the students named them. Then I asked the students if any of them remembered the jobs that each plant part had. The students could all name each plant part but had a little more trouble when I asked them to name the function of each part. With a little help I could tell the students were beginning to catch on. Then I had the students come up to the white board and label the function of each part (with cards listing each function that I had already prepared).

At this point in the lesson, it was clear that the students were bored and weren't being engaged enough so I changed the ending part of my lesson completely. I decided to call students up as volunteers to pretend to be each plant part. The students and I role-played; I pretended the students were plant parts and described what each part's job was to help the plant. The rest of the students in the class guessed which part I was describing. The students were so engaged and excited about this that hands shot up and everyone wanted to participate and be a plant part. It was exhilarating to see the students' reactions to this activity. We also sang a couple plant songs that involved movement and the students really enjoyed this as well. I think they liked having the freedom to move around the room and get their wiggles out while still learning at the same time.