"Practice makes perfect!"

This week’s lesson on observing and describing each mineral’s appearance, texture, and smell went great! This was definitely Ben and I’s best lesson yet and we couldn’t be happier with how we have been improving week after week.

When we arrived to the classroom, Ben started filling small cups up with water and I wrote our agenda, goal, and science question on the white board. We then worked together to make sure all of the materials were set up on the back table. We had eleven egg cartons filled with the 12 minerals labeled A through L, eleven small cups of water with a dropper in each cup, gloves, hand lens, and trays. The students had indoor recess in their classroom on Monday but luckily, we were able to get everything all set before they came in for recess.

When recess was over, the students were asked to take out their reminder binders so the teacher could go over everything they had to do for homework so they could write it down. When they were finished, Ben and I began.

I started our lesson off with welcoming the students back from recess. I then went over our agenda, the goal of the day, and the question we wanted them to be able to answer for us by the end of today’s lesson. I told them to make sure they were constantly thinking about the question while they did the activity. The question asked was, what do each of the 12 minerals feel like, smell like, and look like?

Next, Ben briefly discussed what minerals are while explaining the misconception that rocks don’t have anything to do with minerals. After talking about minerals for a couple of minutes, I briefly explained two common minerals, feldspar and sulfur to the students. These two minerals are mentioned in their science workbooks but we just wanted to mention them quickly so the students know they are important. Ben then discussed what a field test is because a field test is what the students were about to do on each of their 12 minerals. After we mentioned some important vocabulary words, we told the students that we were going to hand out to them a vocabulary sheet with words that should already be familiar to them because we went over all of them at some point in our previous lessons. I told them they would be having a quiz on the vocabulary on Friday and that they would need to practice them at home. We also had them put a star next to any vocabulary words they were still unsure about so they could practice them more.                                                   

                              

                                                                                           Sulfur

The last thing Ben and I had to do before letting the students begin the activity was to demonstrate how they were going to fill in their mineral pro-file sheets. Earlier, Ben had drawn one big mineral sheet on the big paper that looked exactly like the 12 mineral sheets the students have in their workbooks. Ben then explained what they were going to do for each mineral. We used mineral A to show them how they would be recording their observations. Ben explained that in the first box labeled mineral A, the students were to draw mineral A and to then explain the observable color. The next box labeled, feel, would be where the students explained what mineral A felt like, and the last box they would fill out would be the box labeled smell. The students would use the water and the dropper to put one tiny drop of water onto each mineral and then waft to determine if the mineral smells at all and if it does, explain what it smells like. We then had the students fill in the 12 sheets where it had a blank box next to the word, mineral. The first profile sheet would be labeled mineral A; the second profile sheet would be labeled mineral B, and so on until the last mineral which was L. After answering any questions the students had about what they were going to be doing, we asked one partner to get the minerals, hand lens, and two gloves, and the other partner to get one cup of water with the dropper in it and one tray.

                                                         

Thankfully, Ben and I only took about 12 minutes to explain everything so the students had the full 30 minutes to do this activity. The teacher told us to not worry about ending this lesson because she always gives her students more time than usual to complete this activity because of how time consuming it is. As the students were working hard to record their observations, Ben and I walked around answering many questions they had for us. We also had to make sure they weren’t spending too much time on one mineral and that they were talking to each other about what they were observing.

Ben and I were very pleased with this lesson and so was the teacher. She told us it was our best lesson yet which felt great! We made sure we talked about content vocabulary and identified a common misconception that has occurred during this unit. The flow of the class also went very smoothly and we made great time so the students had a lot of time to do their activity. I had such a blast last Monday and I am feeling so much more confident than before. I guess it is true what they say, “practice makes perfect!” I can’t wait for next week’s lesson and neither can Ben!