I survived my first week of classes!

I was extremely nervous about school starting!  I have been in Honduras and serving at Ruach for close to 8 years now, but I have always used Paces.  I have never actually had to teach a class.  Never had to plan my classes and be a teacher.  This year is so different for me!  Different materials, different students, different ages...it is a ton of work!  More than I ever imagined, but I love it!

I am teaching science for 3rd through 7th grades using the curriculum from Science Fusion.  It has been a bit overwhelming.  There is so much information, and so much available I have to keep telling myself I can't do everything....so deciding what works best for me and for my students is still a challenge but I am working through it.  I am learning with them....learning the curriculum and how to teach and manage my classes.

Did I mention that I love it?  I do!

With this curriculum you have available digital lessons and digital labs (the kids love these!)  And written lessons, as well hands-on experiments that line up with the lessons and virtual labs.  There are so many ideas and options and resources available to you, you could never do everything!

We have done several activities away from our desks and I have a few planned this week that I am looking forward to!

Last week 4th grade did an experiment with helicopters.

They "flew" their helicopters, then wrote their observations. We added a paperclip and they hypothesized what they thought would happen and then they "flew" them again.

We learned they "fly" better with the paperclip and when we had some wind they really "flew"!

Third Grade Mystery Boxes

Third grade had to observe by using their sense of smell, hearing and touch to try to determine what was in each of the Mystery Boxes.  We got a little wild and a little loud, but they made it to all 5 stations and we learned some new English words....bell, seashell and cinnamon.

Today the 4th graders got to meet a real scientist, Mr. Celestino!

Celestino showed us around the lab where he works, and showed us where they store the human cells (the kids got really excited about that!), and he showed us his equipment and talked to us about some of the experiments they do.

We met another doctor that works in the lab and we saw her doing some scientific work.

The kids were very excited about today and loved hearing about his work.  Some of them had some questions to ask him about being a scientist.  One of my kids wanted to know where the hamsters and mice were.

It has been a fun week and I have some fun things to look forward to this week....6th grade will begin growing microorganisms on Wednesday.....4th grade will be doing some "pantry science" and 5th grade has an activity to test the balls bouncing on various types of surfaces.

I will have pictures of all of them!