Day 5 of Health and Fitness

Man..today was a very interesting class. Our topic today was abuse and neglect. This topic was extremely interesting because I never knew how much goes into the topic and I had never realized how important my role as an educator is as well as being a citizen. I do have a major obligation to report any suspected abuse whether it is sexual, emotional, and physical abuse because if I do not report it then I will be considered liable and could be charged with a misdemeanor. I also learned that if you suspect any kind of foul play then you should report it no matter what just to cover yourself, and to make sure someone or something can help your student. This topic is very important when it comes to teaching health because both neglect and abuse are very common in the US and it is very good to know what to look for and to be aware that abuse could be happening in your own classroom and what to do in specific situations. I really enjoyed reading the scenarios because some of them are very common and it is good to know what to do in each of those. I know that i need to make sure to be informed about my districts/schools guidelines and policies are for reporting and make sure to talk to someone higher than me. I am a mandatory reporter! It was a very informative seminar today but it also has made me feel a little concerned about the pressure and stress that as a teacher I will bare on my shoulders. Being a teacher takes on great responsibility and I hope that I will be able to cope with the stress and pressure and know that whatever happens in a classroom I need to have my students best interest.

Day 4 of Health and Fitness

I loved the lesson plans today! I learned how hard it can be to create a lesson plan for 1st grade on "Stranger Danger" it is such a difficult topic to teach and there are so many different aspects to teaching this lesson. I was really impressed with the lesson given today because it is extremely important to make sure that our activities that we have for our students are age appropriate and that we need to make sure we use the right academic language for our students. I have really started to narrow in on academic language and that in order to make sure that a lesson plan makes sense we must know the vocab our students are capable of and make sure that we do not try to cram a ton of information in one lesson. Both groups today did a great job on creating engaging lessons for students to learn from. I am excited to use some of these lessons and activities in my own classroom because collaboration is such a great way to teach as well as building a professional working community where ideas can be shared and used among colleagues. Learning about academic language is key to making sure students understand the main idea of the lesson and what the concepts are.

Day 3 of Health and Fitness

I really enjoyed class today and learned so much about how to prepare lesson plans and what makes a good lesson plan and how to improve a lesson given to a class of students. I was very impressed by the groups that went today because they did such a great job, their lessons were interactive and informative. I never knew how much sugar was in certain items I eat and that nutrition labels are very misleading when it comes to serving sizes and daily intake. I went to the Mariner game after class today and I caught myself looking at the sugar content on my sisters cotton candy. I found out in one bucket of cotton candy there are 6 servings and each serving has 29g of sugar and if someone eats that whole bucket then they are consuming about 180g of sugar. I couldn't believe it! I really felt informed after our microteachings today because the sugar lesson is something i could see myself doing in my own classroom because sugar plays a major role in children's lives when it comes to their daily diets. I am looking forward to my other classmates lesson plans because these will be great resources to have for my own teaching.

Day 2 of Health and Fitness

    The most interesting thing that I learned today, is how hard it can be to come up with a lesson plan and what lesson planning consists of. My group today worked really well on coming up with a specific topic to cover but then it was extremely hard to narrow down ideas, and activities to do within our lesson. We all had great ideas to build off of one another but sometimes the ideas would not match our original idea. It was extremely difficult to narrow our focus. I think that it is important to take time in planning a lesson plan and to make sure that the students are getting enough information but are also engaged.
   What I learned today will be very helpful when it comes to teaching health and science lessons. Having an outline for the lesson plan is great when it comes to organizing ideas, goals, instruction, and reflection. I also think that collaborating and bouncing ideas off of each other really help to make sure the lesson plan is developed from multiple perspectives. I think creating these lesson plans will allow us to see health in a different way because most people see health as just exercising and having good nutrition but in reality there are many different aspects to health and I am looking forward to seeing the lesson plans that my fellow cohort members come up with.
    One question that came to mind while we were brainstorming is that how do you narrow lessons that seem broad or cover lots of different ideas? What is the best way? Does our lesson have to match completely with the GLE's/EALRs?

Day 1 of Health and Fitness

       The most important thing I learned in class today (6/22/11-I wrote this post first in my notebook yesterday and then typed it today)  was how to construct a lesson plan with different components. We were in groups today and had to decide what parts of a lesson plan should go where. For example if an engaging game should go first or last, where a worksheet should be and when the reading facts and information should come into play.
       I think what I learned today does affect my thoughts on health and teaching health. When I first thought about the word health I didn't see science as being interchangeable with the words health. But in reality science and health coincide with one another very well. When teaching lessons on health and science it is very important to not just give students factual information but to make sure to have engaging activities which make learning about health and science fun instead of boring. I am looking forward to working with my classmate and learning about the anatomy of the skeletal system.
       Today was just the first day of class and I do not have any questions yet but I know I will have many to come in the future.