October 23, 2008

Today in class we started the presentations of our Midterm video lesson plans. Catie and Becca were first to present their Mixture lesson. They started out by asking the class about mixtures such as sand, gravel, jello, ect. They had us make a mixture of jello. This activity was hands on, and we learned about mixtures and how to make a mixture. We also got to eat a sample of jello, which is always fun! Lindsey and Melanie were next with a presentation on Habitats. They showed us an example of a paper habitat that was made in a shoe box. I remember doing this exact same activity in Middle School. It was an ongoing activity, in which each day we added something new. For example we started with what the terrain was like, then what kind of plant like, and finished learning about what kind of animals lived in the habitats. Lindsey and Melanie explained their lesson with very similar focus as what I remember doing. The next group to present was Kelli and Angie. Their lesson was on sinking and floating objects. We had to predict whether or not random household items would sink or float in a small bucket of water. A few things that surprised me were that a pencil and a crayon both float. We found that a pin would sink as well as paper clips, beans, pennies,and grapes. This was a great way to teach children about predictions and the different properties of objects in which cause them to sink or float. Megan and Brooke also presented their lesson about mixing water and oil. It was a neat activity in which we mixed the two and then added food coloring. It was very cool to watch the mixture because the oil did not turn colors because of the food coloring only the water and the bubbles of the oil did. It looked somewhat like a lava lamp. The last presentation of the day was Whitney and Danielle.Their lesson was about living and nonliving things and what made them different. It was a good lesson with a very entertaining and cute safety video to go along with it.