Student teaching Week 5

They Love Me!!

What an incredible week!!! Many people say that the first three weeks are the "honeymoon period".  Guess what, I feel like the honeymoon period of my student teaching experience is just beginning.  After four rather chaotic weeks of school cancellations, snow days, noon dismissals, crazy schedules etc.  my students have finally been around me enough that they openly claim "SHE'S AWESOME!".  

This week has made me feel good to be a teacher.  My students are finally beginning to catch onto my style of teaching and are coming to class more energetic than the first day I walked in.  It's certainly encouraging.  

What Happened this Week.

So many awesome adventures happened this week.  Here's a quick list:

~ Appropriate Technology  by Dr. Dennis Buffington (Guest Speaker) 

~ How a Biodigestor Works by Brookside Dairy (Field Trip)

~ Introduction to Mopan Technical High School

~ Making feta cheese from start to finish! 

~ Making yogurt from raw milk

~ Filling a greenhouse with over 200 plants!  (And that's just the beginning)

~ Pesticide Toxicity & Health

~ Wiring complex systems 

~ Assembling a small gas engine.

Please enjoy a few pictures from this week.  :D

Planting in the Greenhouse

                                     

                                               Filling the Pots with Soil

                         

                   

Making Cheese

And we wait...

Dr. Buffington

Can you tell this has been awesome!?!

Reflection:
I was very pleased with my teaching this week.  I was challenged in multiple ways but nothing that I wasn't able to overcome.  There were several proud moments that I had this week.  As an example proud moment, I had one student who was being particularly difficult by acting rude, smart, leading the others on, egging the other students, trying to be a class clown but was unsuccessful etc.  Well, I was able to turn this students goofiness into a really cool interest approach for pesticide toxicity & health.

We sticky noted him with all the pesticide poisoning symptoms where we would find it on the body.
Oh it was great!! I no longer have problems with him in my classes.  But he does volunteer quite frequently now.

As I think through the lessons that I taught this week, I am pretty excited to see some of my lessons becoming more inquiry and requiring my students to think through all of the content.  It's been a struggle but it's working.  I certainly am excited to see the strategies working.

What's in it for next week?
Introduction to Agriculture
~ The Design of a biodigestor
~ Creating a profile on Mopan Technical

Animal & Veterinary Science
~ Dairy Foods Unit Exam...Duh, Duh, Duh (did they learn the material?)
~ Dairy Feeds
~ Dairy Management
~ Dairy Health

Power Systems/Power Technology
~  Continuing to rebuild engines and wiring electrical systems

Plant and Soil Science
~ Pesticide Safety

FFA WEEK!!!!!!!
My students are super duper excited to rev up some energy for promoting the FFA!!  Oh there is so much in store!  I'm looking forward to it.