Feeling Accomplished

My first year of teaching it felt like Spring Break would never come... but this year it's here and it feels like we JUST got back from Christmas Break!  I was a little nervous that this week would be a total flop - that I would be checked out, the students would be checked out, and that come the end of the week, we would all go home having accomplished nothing- never a good feeling as a teacher.  I worked really hard to plan engaging but still rigorous lessons for every day this week.   Here's a peak at a few highlights from our week:

Early this week, we dissected owl pellets to determine its diet and classify it as a carnivore.  Students separated the bones, examined the skull, and used a key to determine if the skull was that of a mouse, vole, rat, shrew, mole, or bird.  After we determined which type of animal the skull belonged to, they used a key showing that animal's skeleton to identify the remaining bones.  The student in the picture below was a little disappointed he didn't find a full skull in his pellet, but he was still able to use the jawbones to determine the type of rodent - we celebrated his wisdom and he grinned from ear to ear.  Priceless.

After exploring the predator-prey relationship between owls and rodents, we extended our discussion to include what what the mouse consumed prior to becoming prey and what would consume the owl once it died and was buried in the ground... an easy transition right into food chains!  During the food chains lesson, I provided partners with thirty cards, each depicting an organism with its name and information about what it eats and what it is eaten by.  They worked together to construct different food chains using the cards, and then they chose one to create food chain mobile.  (I limited it to five cards! They weren't too happy about that, but we could have drawn organisms for the next two weeks!)  I was so glad that they took so much interest and pride in the assignment, and they all turned out so well that I hung them in the hallway to show them off.

Once we conquered food chains, we were ready for food webs.  We used the same organism cards and chalk to create food webs right on the surface of our lab tables!  The best part of this activity was seeing the students cooperate with each other to complete the task.  Earlier this year (and still now and again) my boys class made laboratory investigations nearly impossible because they would fuss and fight over who got to do what -- even though I had already assigned each of them a role and I always make sure each role is a good one!  The picture below is one of my boys groups - you can see four of their hands. I wish I could show all four of their faces - one is talking, one is drawing what he is describing, and the other two are actively listening and making sure the arrows are being drawn correctly.

I really do count it an accomplishment as a teacher to have had such a great week of learning with my students the week before Spring Break.  I have learned so much this year - about myself as a teacher and my areas of strength and areas of improvement, as well as good tried-and-true tricks of the trade.  Spring Break is so much better walking out the school doors with a smile on my face and proud of my students rather than my head hung low and feeling defeated like I did my first year!  Maybe I'll turn out to be an alright teacher after all. :)