I'm really mad and upset. Today was the last week of my service-learning and I wasn't able to go. I stayed after class to discuss something with my professor which caused me to run a little late to meet the college van we take to Tully. It came to my knowledge that some girls in the van told Matt the driver that I wasn't coming today so they left without me and I missed them by a minute. What really upsets me is that I've never missed a week before, unlike the other girls, and of course the week I miss is the day that they are thanked for volunteering. I heard that first they painted their volcanoes and then after they all went on a mini field trip hike. I was told they walked to a nearby stream and looked at different fossils and plants in their community. Then as a show of thanks, Mrs. P. and the children took everyone to get ice cream. I'm so upset I wasn't able to be a part of this and enjoy eating ice cream with everyone. What upsets me the most is that I wasn't able to say goodbye to the children and I hope they all don't think I bailed on the last day since I never missed a week with them. Even though I missed out on this experience I still overall learned a lot from my service-learning experience and am happy I was apart of the program. I even was still able to receive my Certificate of Participation for participating in the TREP after-school Enrichment Program for Spring 2013 so I was happy about that at least. I was asked to continue my work with the Tully Elementary School's After-School Program and I would very much like to do so if my new schedule next semester permits.
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At first Mrs. P. showed a video on volcanoes. Next we went down to the computer lab where she showed them a PowerPoint on different types of volcanoes. Each of the students received a packet to write down notes and copy facts on. The kids had spaces to copy each picture of all the different types of volcanoes. After learning a little more about the many different varieties of volcanoes, Mrs. P. told the kids to go to the Web site in their packet and choose a volcano of their liking. They had spaces in their packets to record information on their specific volcano of their choice and Mrs. P. requested that each child print out a picture of their volcano. Once all the children got their facts and pictures, we headed back to the classroom. There, Mrs. Podsiedlik demonstrated how to create a volcano using clay and one of the different types of cups provided, depending on the type of volcano. She then handed out a chunk of clay to each student and they were asked to create their own volcano, imitating the picture of the one they chose. It was fun watching them create their sculptures, banging it on the table and seeing their hands turn gray. Before it was time to pack up, the children put their volcanoes off to the side labeled with a piece of paper with their name on it. They handed their volcano packets and pictures to me who I gave to Mrs. P. I liked watching them learn about and create their own volcano. Next week they will finish their volcano creations. I can't wait to see how they will all turn out!
Today was a pretty boring day. I was extremely tired on top of it, which made it even more boring. When we got there, the kids were already watching a video Mrs. P. was showing them. They continued watching videos so I became bored just sitting there. It almost put me to sleep but then Mrs. Podsiedlik handed out 3D glasses and said they were going to try and watch some animation in 3D. She played a video of lava and it was kind of cool watching it in a different dimension, however the glasses weren't as effective as predicted. This is all we pretty much did today so it wasn't very engaging for me. Hopefully next week will consist of more fun-filled activites.
Those two weeks just flew by and it was back to Tully for me today. They finally moved on from Mars and began learning about the Earth today. Mrs. Podsiedlik taught them what the Earth is composed of. She told them the Earth is made up of an inner core, outer core, mantle and crust. Then she explained to the students that they will be creating their own Earths and must include those four components. She listed the four layers and what colors to use for each. After handing out the different colored play dough to each student, I watched them create their balls of Earth. Mrs. P. told me after they are done with their creations to cut a slice of it using a wire to show them the inside layers. Some of them were hard to cut and I was afraid of squishing it or messing it up. After putting the play dough Earths aside, Mrs. Podsiedlik went on to talk about tectonic plates and the different types of boundaries. She discussed divergent, convergent and transform boundaries. While she was doing that I went down to the teachers' lounge to heat up marshmallows in the microwave. I handed out graham crackers, chocolate and some heated marshmallows to each student. They then were able to create their own edible tectonic plate boundaries using those ingredients. They looked and smelled delicious I wish I could have made some of my own! I thought that was a really clever idea since they were able to learn and create, then enjoy eating it after. Today was a pretty fun day except it made me hungry LOL.
Last week was my Spring Break so I did not get to visit Tully. I'm not sure what the children were engaged in but I'm sure it was fun! This week they continued their study on Mars. It was a pretty boring day for me because we just went down to the computer lab and the children watched Mars videos on a website provided to them. I was able to help all the kids get logged onto the computers but then I kinda just stood around while they watched the videos. I couldn't hear what the videos were saying since they all had headphones on but the videos did look interesting. It seemed like a very educational site that maybe I will use on my students in the future. Mrs. Podsiedlik informed us that the following two weeks we will not be meeting as next week is Tully Elementary's Spring Break and the following week is Oswego's break which Mrs. P. also teaches at. It will be a nice two weeks off for me even though I think I am going to miss the children. I hope losing these two weeks won't leave me short with my community service hours at the end of the semester. Otherwise, I will have to find other ways to compensate for the hours lost.
The students continued to learn about Mars today. They watched another video and we all learned that it takes 14 minutes for scientists to communicate with the Mars robot. After obtaining this information, Mrs. P. broke up the class into two groups and assigned one group to one activity and the other group to a different one. One of the activities required being blind folded but I wasn't assigned to that activity so I'm not sure what it involved. It probably had something to do with communicating though because that's what the other activity was about also. I was assigned to the activity with the legos. For the lego activity, they had to partner up and one partner sat on one side of a cardboard divider while the other sat on the opposite side. Next someone had to decide to be the robot and the other was the scientist who had to direct the robot to make a spaceship that imitated theirs. It seemed very challenging for them as it was hard for them to hear and follow the directions word for word. I did not intercede, my job was to simply make sure the kids weren't cheating and looking at each other's creations. It was really funny watching them direct each other and when they would miscommunicate and do the wrong task or pick the wrong lego piece. Grace and Anthony were at my station and Anthony was the robot first. In the end their spaceships didn't match up and I pointed out the mistakes that Grace made after they revealed their creations. I then made a few suggestions before they switched roles such as to be very specific with the directions and descriptions of lego pieces. Their communication skills definitely improved the second time around, however Anthony is a very impatient child and it was hard for Grace to keep up with the directions he was throwing at her. Overall, I think this was an effective activity and observing the kids entertained me.
Today they discussed more properties. First Mrs. P. had them list properties of humans. Then she brought out a tray of cookies and told each child to come pick one out of the three different flavors. The three choices were chocolate chip, white chocolate macadamia and double chocolate chip. After each student had a cookie, she told them each to go to a table with everyone else with the same flavor of cookie. She then told them that they are scientists from different countries and they all had to decide on common properties that could be agreed upon by everyone at their table. I sat at the table with the white chocolate macadamia cookies. I was trying to help assist them come up with properties for their cookies. Most of them tried listing "delicious" as one of the properties and I had to explain to them that just because the cookie tasted good to them, does not mean it tastes good to everyone. After coming up with a list of properties for our cookie, Mrs. P. had all the children read off their lists to find similarities between them. This way they figured out what properties would be for a cookie in general. After accomplishing this, we were all allowed to eat our cookies. It was very tasty and I wish I could have had more LOL. Next, Mrs. P. told the scientists that their friend was stuck on Planet Oobleck and they had to create something that would float on Oobleck in order to rescue them. The kids got into groups and each created their own spaceship that they thought would float on Oobleck. Each one was different in their own unique way. Some were tall, some were wide, some were thin. Some of them failed the challenge, while others succeeded. It was fun watching all the groups test theirs out.
Today when we arrived at Tully, the children were watching a video about Mars. It was pretty interesting learning about the Mars Rover and how it works. After the video, they learned about properties. They learned that to determine properties it is useful to use the five senses. They listed some properties of Oobleck and then they got to play with it! The Oobleck was really fun and interesting to play with because when sitting in the container it was a liquid, but after squeezing it it became a solid. Oobleck is made from cornstarch and water, it was very simple to make. The cornstarch made it very messy though so I had to be careful not to get it on my clothes, even though it would probably come out. Mrs. P. also told me you can add food coloring to the Oobleck to change its color, but then it would stain hands so she decided not to. The children really enjoyed playing with the Oobleck and getting their hands messy!
Earlier in the week, Mrs. P. requested if anyone would like to prepare and present a lesson on skyscrapers and/or Engineers. Since I'm thriving to be a teacher in the future, I decided to take this initiative and prepare a lesson. I also remembered from working with the group of Vincent and Anthony last week for the card tower project, they informed me that they like WarHead candies. Since it is Valentine's Day, I asked Mrs. P. her permission and brought in enough candies for each student. When we arrived at Tully, Mrs. Podsiedlik was showing the students videos to make the connection to the 1930's building 'wars' in NYC, which was the race to build the tallest skyscraper. The key ideas she made were that skyscrapers came about because of the development of steel/iron as a building material and the growing populations and demand for real-estate in urban centers such as NYC. If you can build sideways you build up. She also taught them a little about the history of the Great Depression and how the building of skyscrapers in NYC put people back to work in a very tough economic time in our country's history. The video links Mrs. P. showed are: http://video.answers.com/explore-the-history-behind-the-chrysler-building-517229538 http://www.history.com/videos/empire-state-building-defies-depression#empire-state-building-defies-depression She also showed a ppt with some images as well.
I did my presentation on Amazing Skyscrapers using a computer with Internet access and brought in one copy of Take-Home Activity Sheet: Careers in Engineering and Architecture for each student. First, I helped the students brainstorm the names of some famous skyscrapers. They were familiar with the Empire State Building in New York City. We had a brief discussion about why people build such giant buildings. For example, they are efficient in crowded cities because they provide maximum office or living space while taking up a small amount of ground. They have also become cultural or industrial icons and a source of pride for the city in which they are found. I had the class then answer certain questions about the skyscraper that we found on Web sites with good sources of information about the building. After asking them questions, I also went over some useful vocabulary. I think my presentation went great and the kids loved the candy. Rebecca was the only other person to prepare a lesson as well. She made an interesting poster with examples of skyscrapers on it. I really enjoyed getting up in front of the class and teaching them. I am very grateful for that opportunity and hope to be able to do more lesson planning.
After the candy and the presentation the children designed and created their own bottle rockets. Then we all traveled down the hall to the gym to test them out using an air pump to see which one traveled the farthest. Connor's ended up going pretty far, almost to the other side of the gym. After the first trial, we returned to the classroom so the kids could make any modifications to their rockets in order to help it go farther. We spent the remainder of our time in the gym trying out the bottle rockets for a second time. Some improved while others became worse and some didn't change at all. Upon our return to the classroom, Mrs. Podsiedlik said to dress casual for next week as the children will be playing with Oobleck. I have never heard of this before so I'm excited to see what it's all about! Today was my first day as a volunteer tutor/mentor with the Tully Elementary School's After-School Program. I was very eager on the half hour ride there. Tully Elementary School is a cute school with labeled hallways and is located next to the high school. However, Tully is in a poor area. I never would have suspected as it's bigger than the elementary school I attended and no one seemed as if they were in poverty. First, I met all the children who attend the TREP Program on Thursdays. They are all 5th and 6th graders and are adorable! At first, I couldn't believe that they're that old because when I first got there I thought they were younger. I enjoyed watching them go around a circle, starting with Connor, stating their name, grade and something about his or herself. There wasn't very many of them, only eleven kids and there were only two girls, Maggie and Grace. Maggie looks like a girl I used to know and I like Grace because that's my cousin's name. After meeting everyone Ms. Podsiedlik, who directs the program, discussed engineers and their importance in society. She introduced the engineering process model we will be exploring. The Engineering Design Process involves The Goal and 5 basic steps: Ask → Imagine → Plan → Create → Improve. Keeping this in mind, Ms. P. explained that today's challenge is a simple design challenge that is accessible to children of all ages. They worked with a partner to create a card tower. This was a good introduction to fun in creativity and problem solving.
I was assigned to work with the groups to facilitate the challenge activity. The children worked with a partner to build a tower out of playing cards and tape. Each pair got one roll of tape and one deck of cards. They were instructed to build a card tower as tall as they could, that can stand independently, using only the materials they had. They were told to plan first (which I noticed was the hardest part for them, I needed to remind them to think before acting) and then build, adjusting their planning as necessary. I worked with Anthony and Vincent's group. I really enjoyed watching them plan and build. I even got to know them a little better, talking about our favorite movies, candies, etc. The boys were both very funny, Vincent is a comical character. The building process lasted about 45 minutes to 1 hour. Following the challenge they compared designs and reflected upon how they used the engineering design process to arrive at their creation. My group's tower didn't quite work out. The girls, Maggie and Grace's tower turned out to be the tallest. They named their tower "Magrace" which I thought was funny since it's both of their names combined. At 5 pm they packed up to go home. The challenge for me was to not help them build or problem solve. I could not intercede in the process. The groups needed to work out the challenges on their own. No suggestion making was allowed, only questioning. I asked questions such as, What could you do to make your structure stronger and more stable so it doesn't tip over? What isn't working with your tower? How can you change something to fix that? It was pretty cool observing the kids build their towers and how they fixed it when things didn't quite work the way they thought they would. I had a great first experience and I can't wait to continue to grow as a tutor/mentor. I'm looking forward to working with Mary and the children this semester in the following weeks to come! |
Julia MooreMy blog helps me to blend readings with my community project experiences. My reflections are based in part on my frequent and ongoing service-learning updates. Archives |