Today was my first day back at HSS for this year. It was an interesting experience walking down the halls and seeing some new faces (grade 8s) and missing some old faces (the grade 12s from last year).
I was called in for a half day (AM), but in the chaos that has been my life for the past few days I completely forgot and was counting on staying for the whole day. Needless today say, I had a mild panic attack when I got to the school, couldn't find a lesson plan, and only had enough handouts for two classes. After running around like a fool, I opened the teacher's laptop as a last-ditch effort, and there was the lesson plan, with very detailed instructions. The video clips were pre-loaded, the powerpoint was open. It was fantastic. Too bad I didn't realize that before my mini meltdown.
First up was Science 9. After my sometimes turbulent relationship with some of the grade 8s at the end of last year, I was a bit nervous, but things actually went very smoothly! We talked about the expanding nature of our universe and we did a cool mini-experiment where we drew dots on a balloon and then blew it up to see how they moved. Really easy, really effective.
Next was Biology 11. These guys are right into the heart of their "bug projects" (aka. catch spiders, kill them with nail polish remover, identify them, then mount them on a board). How well I remember that from my own Bio 11 days! They were really chatty right off the bat (and it was a big, 28 person class) and I was worried about classroom management. Things settled down though, and after a short quiz we did some very brief notes, then headed outside to collect items for a dichotomous key assignment. It was interesting to say the least! After our outside time where I got to chat with the students, find out how their summers had been, and get back "in touch" with them, the classroom management was a lot better. It is amazing what a difference that personal connection makes!
I was all prepared to leave at lunchtime, but I got halted in the office by my former mentor teacher who wasn't feeling too well and asked if I was able to cover her classes for the afternoon. We got the paperwork all signed, and then I headed off for an afternoon of Resource Room and Comparative Civilizations.
Resource was a nice easy block. There were about 5 students I was working with on a variety of things including math, planning, science, and social studies. The block went quickly, and aside from some confusion (mine) about how to do one of the math questions (ugh trigonometry) everything went smoothly.
Comparative Civilizations is a fabulous course and my mentor teacher does an amazing job of engaging the students. Today they were starting Ancient Egypt, so they had a "team challenge" to complete a map of the world. There were 25 countries numbered on the map and the teams had to use their collective brainpower to name as many as they could. I was pretty impressed with some groups, and a bit horrified when one group thought Spain was Egypt! After the challenge, the students worked on a map of Ancient Egypt for the rest of the block.
Overall the day was a lovely welcome back to HSS and I felt really positive about the classes I taught. There were a few false starts and rocky points, but I think that was more getting back into the swing of things than anything else. I'm back in tomorrow for more Science 9 and Biology 11 (repeats of today) and I'm looking forward to trying out the same lesson plans with different groups of students. I always find it fascinating how classroom dynamics can totally change how a lesson unfolds!
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