1.5 Hour Lesson

This week I taught my hour and a half lesson. I was really excited about teaching this lesson because I created four centers in the classroom where the students got to sort various objects by attributes. One center the students were independently sorting cylinder and squares by color, at another they sorted various sized and colored attribute shapes, with the lead teacher they sorted coins, and at my center they sort all different kinds of buttons. I remembered sorting the buttons in Dr.. Nabors class and was lucky enough to borrow them. This week I read about Lemov's technique, "Change of Pace". This is such an imperative technique to use with young children as their span of attention is so short. The way I set up the lesson was for the children to concentrate and work on one skill, but it various formats. My hope was that the transitioning between centers would feel like starting something new although they were still practicing the same skill but with different manipulatives.

I think the activities themselves were good, but I felt the lesson did not go smoothly because the classroom was so chaotic. 27 kindergarten students in one room! Unfortunately, that is many teachers realities in public school. I really needed to create tighter transitions, which was hard to explain given the 1.5 hour time frame. I haven't observed any routine transition behavior in the classroom, otherwise I would have used that. It got me thinking, what might I use in my classroom to help transitions between activities run smoothly. Each table that the students work at needs to clearly be marked. I have seen colored chair covers, which I love. Other ideas I though about were adhering colored shapes to the chairs of table (one table would be the triangle table, one could be the circle table). Identifying the tables by a skill the children need to learn, such as shape identification, is a great learning tool. You could switch it up periodically throughout the year. In my lesson revision, I created specific instructions for when the students are doing activities where they have to move from table to table. I though it seemed a bit "strict" while writing it, but my hope is that it would become a habit over time for the students. I would have a wind chime, bell, or some sort of noise making device that the students automatically associated with changing tables. As soon as the students hear this, they put what ever they have in their hands down, stand up, push their chair in, and quietly move to the next table. I've been reading a book on classroom management and I think its really important to establish these habits with your students at the beginning of the year to help class run more smoothly and create an atmosphere that is easier to learn and teach in.