Week 9

Today at field experience, our teacher was absent. So, because of this absence she left us an activity to prepare for the kids to do when they came back from specials. Basically what we had to do was cut out little cards from a sheet of paper and break the students up into groups of two. The cards each had clues using the definition and root of the word so that they would lead to the next card. One student would have the first card, the second student would have the other and it would go back and forth until the students ran out of cards. We were supposed to explain the activity to the class and then go around and answer questions, however the activity was a disaster. None of the students understood what they were supposed to be doing, and the cards were really mixed up. So, the other IU teachers and I decided that we were going to go through the cards as a class, and I thought the activity was much more fun. The first student read the first card, and if the students knew the answer they would raise their hand. If I called on them and they knew the answer, they would get to read their clue, and if they got it wrong, they would have to look through their cards and try again. I think when the class was thinking together like that, the energy was much better, and the activity was somewhat redeeming because the first attempt was such a disaster. I understand that sometimes lessons don't go exactly as planned, but the frustrating part was that we weren't the ones that came up with the lesson and neither the students nor the teacher knew how to participate. It was rough!