Living vs. Non Living Reflection

For my clinical science lesson, I taught a lesson on living and nonliving to my PDS kindergarten class.  At the beginning, I knew my class would be wound up because they had been all day and my lesson was the last thing of the day.  Since I decided to start my lesson off with a video of Cookie Monster teaching them about living and non living things, it grabbed their attention and allowed them to calm down.  I think using that as my introduction worked really well.  Mrs. Roop, my CT, said that she loved that I used the video in my feedback.  I enjoy using technology to enhance my students’ learning.  I then created an anchor chart with the class about what three questions they should ask when deciding if something was living, which they viewed in the video.   Almost all of the children’s hands went up, so I was glad that they remembered the questions.  The three questions were: Does it eat? Does it breathe? Does it grow?  I wrote those on the anchor chart and asked for suggestions of things from the class to see if we could determine if it was living or non living.  I recorded one response at a time and asked the three questions, then recorded yes or no for the big question: “Is it living?”  Mrs. Roop also said in my feedback that the students were engaged, which is what I was aiming for.  I like making my lessons fun for the kids and keep them entertained, yet still learn something from them.  After going through some of the suggestions from the students, writing them on the chart, and asking the three questions, I flipped the easel around to the pocket chart.  I had pre-made pictures of things that were both living and non living and asked the students to sort the pictures into the correct category. I made sure every student got a picture and asked them to turn and talk to their partner to figure out if their picture was living or non living.  The children loved that!  Mrs. Roop also said that I have great ideas, which I think were shown throughout the different parts of my lesson.  Once the children all had a chance to discuss, I had some of the students come up, show the class their picture, and answer the three questions to determine if it was living or non living.  Every student that was called up, except for one, was able to sort his or her picture correctly. The students were excited about getting to come up and share as well.  It’s a big deal to them to have all eyes on them and getting to share their ideas with each other, so I think it worked out really well that I incorporated that into my lesson.

After we modeled the sorting of certain pictures as a class, the students received their own sorts that they needed to cut out and arrange accordingly. Once they sorted, they were expected to write down which things were living and which things were non living on their paper.  I think having the children write was a good way for me to incorporate a literacy standard, rather than just having them complete a literacy activity along with science (words their way).  As I walked around with my checklist, I was surprised that there were as many children that got the answers correctly as they did.  Even some of my lower students understood the concept of living vs non living.  The most common mistake was putting the tree and the flower under the non living category, but it did not surprise me much since my class rarely ever covers science.  The fact that my students understood and applied their knowledge was a great feeling.  I then wanted to do a check for understanding with the whole class.   When I called out one of the pictures, like a cloud, I asked the three questions: Does it eat? Does it breathe? Does it grow?  The class then had to tell me if the cloud was living or non living and show me by putting their finger on their nose if they got it correctly.  Implementing the finger on the nose action was extremely exciting for the kids and it was exciting for me to see how many children actually got it right!

I had two areas of growth that Mrs. Roop wrote down.  They were: Continue to find ways to increase student engagement like varying voice, and don’t forget to have a lesson closure.  While thinking about it, she is absolutely right!  I can’t believe I didn’t think about using different voices to call out living or non living because I implement that daily when the students and I do calendar.  I also had not even realized I didn’t close the lesson correctly since I had gone over the three questions so many times throughout the lesson.  If I had to re-do it, I would have used the different voices to keep both the students and myself entertained while going through multiple objects.  I would have also had the students go back to the carpet and review the three questions just for a final wrap-up.  I remember doing a lesson on living vs. non living in Mrs. Silva’s class and it got me thinking that I should have done a song as well  at the beginning and at the end.  My classroom loves songs and has them for things like spelling sight words and colors every day.

            Overall, I think my lesson went really well.  I think majority of my students grasped the concept of determining if something was living or non living.   I think that if I had more time, I could have had children draw their own pictures of an object and share with the class to see if they could find out if it was something that was alive or not alive.  That way, I could have incorporated more writing and drawing, which my students love doing.   

Exceeds: Included image of sort children did and reflected on what others taught vs what I taught when teaching living vs nonliving.