Tuesday, February 22, 2011

What I'm Teaching This Week

So, it was a 3 day weekend plus 1! We had a snow day today, despite a very meager helping of snow from Mother Nature. That means extra time to perfect my lesson plans for the week. Honestly, if I had all the time in the world, I'd make these great lesson plans and worksheets that I could use from year to year. This weekend I've had the time to spend 5+ hours on one science lesson that covers two days, but I know that that is a rare gift.

Something I learned about myself in college was that I "need" pressure to work quickly. When I get an extra snow day, I don't think about creating more lesson plans. I think about perfecting the ones I have already made. And when I work quickly, the results are nice, but they aren't my best work. And when I have "all the time in the world", I work slowly, my results show my immense attention to detail (down to the correct font sizing and spacing on my worksheets) and are more of a display of what I can do.

One thing that I am coming to terms with is that I am not a particularly efficient worker. I can work quickly and "get the job done" or work slowly and get the job done well. Why can't I be quick and great at the same time!!

Anyway, there's three days left for this week and I'm starting new units for both of my classes. For 6th grade science, we are delving in the inside of the Earth and for 8th grade math, we will be working with solving equations while reviewing for the MSA.

In 6th grade, we'll be watching BrainPOP!'s video on the Earth's structure, filling out our first K(no W)L chart and making playdoh models of the layers of the Earth and practicing taking rock cores with straws (courtesy Lesson Planet) :) I'm also going to try to incorporate Magic School Bus somehow... Though it takes a while for Ms. Frizzle and the gang to get to the point of things, my kids remember the information so much better when told in story format.

Will update on the math side soon...!

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