ENRICHMENT TEACHING
Oh NO! I volunteered to teach Enrichment! What was I thinking?
You did it. You volunteered to teach. Where do you get started? First, you need to select a topic. Look at what your children just studied or have finished studying. I teach my 3rd and 5th grader using a unit approach in science and a chronological approach in history so there are some resources there. So for an example, I will show you below how I would plan a 1 hour lesson for the K-3rd classes.
First, what are the characteristics of a K-1 child versus a 2-3rd child? K-1st children are still coming out of their pre-school years. Some will be non-readers and others will have been reading since they were 4. They can sit still for about 15 maximum before they need to change activities. Now the change can still involve some sitting, but the hands or body must be active. They love learning through games and songs. Don’t throw a lot of pencil and paper work at them, because their best learning is by doing.
A 2-3rd grade student does have a longer attention span but don’t increase their "lecture" time. Extend the different activities planned with a little bit more complexity. Most homeschooled students can read by this age, but they love to learn new ways of doing and they want to do it themselves.
Let’s take a pretend unit on the weather. First I should have 2-4 objectives. Writing them down can help you choose the activities and help you condense your information so you don’t overload the kids.
- To identify the four main categories of clouds.
- To see how wind affects the clouds and weather
- To identify severe weather in N.C.
- To be safe in severe weather
While I have chosen four objectives, I know that I will emphasis the first two. I want my students to be able to look at the sky and know the clouds, including which clouds signify bad weather approaching. How do I accomplish my goals?
First, look at all of your children’s science books. There might be a cool experiment in your 7th grader book that can be adapted for the class. Go to the library. There is a good selection of resource and experiment books to use. There might be a short video you can use. Take notes on information that will help you explain the objectives. Remember that reading books out loud or watching a long video will not be the best way to teach this age group. If you are using a weather video, select only the parts that show severe weather or cloud movement, or read only part of the book.
Ok, you have your info and you need to develop a teaching plan to execute. The four types of clouds are cumulus, stratus, cirrus and nimbus. You draw them on the board. You could stand up and talk, or you could have 4 poster board costumes for students or teacher helpers to wear. I would first start with finding out what your group of students knows about the weather. What is their favorite weather? What causes different kinds of weather? Have they ever lain on their backs and looked at the clouds and sky? What did they see? Do they know the names of the clouds? Then I would talk about the fluffy clouds (Cumulus). Have the helper come in the costume. Walk or slightly trot around the room acting like a cloud. I would do this for all the categories. Then I would turn on a fan and blow the clouds around. Then I would have Mr. Wind come in and move the clouds around to show how wind affects the clouds. I would talk about the weather that is associated with each type of cloud. For the 2-3rd graders I would talk about wind speed and perhaps have an example.
For severe weather discussion, thunder storms, lightning, hurricanes, flooding, tornadoes and snowstorms would be discussed.
Since I am focusing on clouds and wind I would give the info about how to count to determine how far away lightning was by the thunder. For the younger kids, we might march around the room in two groups making thunder and lightning with flashlights for lightning and pots and pans for thunder. We would go over safety rules about staying away from trees if caught in a storm, staying off the phone and not wading in rushing stream waters during a storm.
Activities: K-1 and 2-3 could each make tornadoes in a bottle, rain gauges, cloud charts to help children guess the weather, wind chimes out of metal canning rings, keys, nails, etc.; cloud masks for the K-1st, or weather vanes.
Videos: I would limit the video to showing the lightning strike before the thunder. The children at this age don’t need to see the hurricane or tornado videos available. You as a teacher might want to view them for resources.
Songs and games: There are some good songs from Rain, Rain Go Away to some of the JayJay songs from the PBS series.
Play a game where 1/3 of the class is the wind and 2/3 are the clouds and the wind blows the cumulus clouds away and blows in the nimbus clouds. Use the Red-rover rules to do the game. Remember that the games may seem too babyish to the 2-3 rd graders, so they might like making more experiments to take home.
Handouts: Usually when I am doing the planning for the lesson, I come across a lot of information that I want to share with the students. Instead of stuffing more info than the students can comprehend, I put the info, activities and experiments on a handout for the moms to use to enhance what the students have learned. This also helps the parent when she asks, "What did you learn in Enrichment today?" The child says, "Oh, just stuff about the weather."
The teaching schedule would go like this: Cloud discussion, 10 -15 minutes; wind experiment with fans, 5 minutes; severe weather discussion, 5-8 minutes; video, 1 minute; thunder /lightning activity, 5 min.; marching, 3 min.; experiments,5-8 minutes; explanation and instructions for craft activity, 5 min. This leaves approximately 25 minutes to do 2 projects. For K-1, I would probably make rain gauges, cloud charts and wind chimes. For the 2-3rd graders I would make tornadoes in a bottle, rain gauges and wind chimes. Songs and extra games can be done in the last 5 minutes, if there is time.
You will need to over plan, over plan, and over plan your lesson! Sometime you will be in the middle of an activity and you discover that the children know the material or that you are teaching way over their level. Drop it! A good teacher knows when to drop back and punt to the next thing. It is so much better to regroup than to have children getting into trouble because you have nothing else to do. Know your learning levels and teach appropriately. The Elijah Company Catalog has some excellent articles on how children learn. If you do most of the above activities you will have taught verbally, visually, and kinetically.
Finally, teaching 1- 25 children can be exciting and challenging. You may seem overwhelmed but the Lord has called you to teach your own children, so he will help you with this task too! I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me. Philippians 4:13
Written by Lynne Nixon.