Taste Lesson at Brigham

Today, I got to teach my lesson at Brigham in the Pre-K classroom with Emily. Our lesson was one lesson in a five senses unit, so we taught a lesson on taste. I've attached the link to our 5E lesson plan google doc at the bottom of this post. For our lesson, we began talking with the children about taste and what they taste with. We gave them the opportunity to use little mirrors to look inside their mouths and at their taste buds. After we talked about what they saw, and we read a book about what taste is and how it works. The children then got to move from station to station to use their sense of taste to taste different foods. After everyone got to taste some the four different foods, the students regrouped on the carpet. We talked with them about some vocabulary such as “salty”, “sweet”, “bitter”, and “sour”. Then we had the children rotate through the stations again, and this time, they got to “vote” (write their name) on which word they thought best described what they tasted. After all of the children had a chance to vote, they again returned to the carpet where we talked about our favorite taste and recapped what we learned.

Throughout our lesson, we ran into some issues, which changed the flow of the lesson. In today’s classrooms there are many allergies that we must be aware of. Emily and I thought the only foods we had to avoid bringing into the classroom were peanuts and raw eggs. On the day we taught, we found out that lemons were going to be the only food the children were able to taste out of everything we brought in (M&M’s, pretzels, cocoa powder, and lemons). We had to quickly change the other three stations, and we were lucky enough to have teachers in charge of each station. Instead of actually tasting the three items (M&M’s, pretzels, cocoa powder), the teacher just engaged the children in a conversation about what they thought the food would taste like, and if they’d had anything like it before. This was rather challenging for many reasons. First and foremost, teaching children that you don’t know is always really really challenging. Second, some of these students are English Language Learners, so they’re vocabulary is rather limited to begin with. The students were really having trouble with trying to describe what something might taste like without actually getting the opportunity to taste it.

Since the students weren’t able to taste three out of the four foods, the discussion about the vocabulary was rather difficult to complete as well. I also noticed that when the children “voted” on which word best described the taste, their answers were all over the place. This probably occurred for two reasons. First and again, the students may have another language at home, which prevents them from having heard some of these words before. Second, the students didn’t actually get to try any of the foods, so it was challenging for them to try to guess or assume what a food would taste like.

This lesson did allow me to work towards my goal of becoming more comfortable when working with English Language Learners, because I was able to actually interact with and teach them for the full thirty minutes. For me, English Language Learners sometimes make me feel uncomfortable, because I can’t always understand what they’re saying. I feel bad having to ask them to repeat what they’ve said (especially in this particular setting, because I don’t know them at all). I think the best way to overcome that nervousness or to achieve my goal is to simply practice talking with students who are English Language Learners. I was fortunate enough to pick to be in charge of the lemon station, and the students were actually able to taste the lemon wedges. I was able to interact with and talk to each student on a 2:1 or 3:1 basis. This really helped me work towards my goal, because I was interacting with the students almost individually. I realized that when I’m working with or talking to English Language Learners that pictures or visuals are important. For example, after the children had tasted the lemon, I asked them, “Do you think this is a good taste or a bad taste?” The first two students I asked this two just kind of looked at me really confused. I decided to let them show me by using thumbs up or thumbs down. The students then seemed to understand very quickly what I was asking them. They were successfully able to answer my question. This is something I will keep in mind for my future teaching when I’m working with English Language Learners.

Reflecting back, there are a few things I would change with this particular lesson. First, I would include more visuals or motions for the children. After seeing how well the thumbs up or thumbs down worked with the students, I think visuals or motions would’ve really improved the entire lesson. I also think translating those vocabulary words into their native langue might have helped. The students might have better recognized what those words mean, and how to apply them to the foods. I also think having the vocabulary words written out would help, because we’ve learned in one of our modules that visuals and pictures help English Language Learners better understand things. I think writing the English word next to the Spanish word would’ve deepened and really help them understand and grasp the vocabulary.

I think some strengths of our lesson were the engagement level of the students. Although they only got to taste one of the foods, the children were really engaged at my station. They were excited to get to try the food, and they wanted to know what it would taste like. I think it the children were able to taste all of the foods, they would’ve been very engaged throughout the entire lesson. Another strength I think our lesson had was building on each part. I think the lesson seemed to have really nice flow, because the concepts started very simple and built off one another. For example, the beginning idea was simple to explore what we taste with (taste buds and tongue). Then the children got to use their tongue and taste buds. After that we talked about vocabulary to describe what they tasted with their tongue and taste buds, etc.

Link to our lesson plan: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1HTXYBDmYL-s6VVQXBTearP11f2y4-uGL-X3YvrMos0A/edit

Exceeds: I went over the word count and included a link to our lesson plan for anyone to view and to help them better understand my reflection.

Brigham Week 2

This week I was in the pre-k classroom for the first time, and it was a really different experience compared to the kindergarten classroom. The children's behavior was the first thing that was very different. In kindergarten, the children very much so wanted to participate, talk, and interact. While I observed the two teachers teach the pre-k children, I noticed this group was the opposite of the kindergarteners. The pre-k children have a hard time answering simple questions, and it seems difficult to get them to engage.
This week, I mostly got to observe two teachers teach a lesson on the sense of touch. I did get to briefly interact with two children in a small group activity. This is where I was able to work more towards my goal. My goal is to become more comfortable when working with English Language Learners. I made this my goal, because it's sometimes hard for me to understand what the children are saying, and I honestly feel really bad asking them to repeat what they've said. This week, I worked with two children, one boy and one girl. The boy was very easy to understand, and I'm assuming that English was his first language. The girl on the other hand, spoke very soft, and it was difficult to understand her. I'm not sure if she was an English Language Learner, or if she was just shy, because she didn't know me.
During the interaction with the little girl, I was supposed to have her close her eyes and place an orange on her leg and a baseball on her arm. She was then supposed to guess which one was touching her arm. During this little activity, she struggled with keeping her eyes closed. I'm not sure if she was just afraid or nervous, because she didn't know me or any of the teachers in the classroom. Another thought was (if she is an English Language Learner) maybe this activity or telling her to "keep her eyes closed" didn't make sense. Reflecting back, I think this might have been the case. If this was my lesson and I was going to teach it again to a group I know would have English Language Learners, I might include a picture to help demonstrate what it means to "keep your eyes closed". This is something we've talked about in 276 along with most of my other classes. Lots of times pictures will help children who aren't as familiar with the language, because they can visually see what they're supposed to be doing. Instead of having to listen to directions, process, and try to figure out what they're supposed to do.
In the second part of the activity, I was supposed to have her put both hands out in front of her and place an orange in one hand and the baseball in the other hand. She was then supposed to guess which item was in which hand. Again, she struggled keeping her eyes closed, and she also didn't really understand what it meant to guess which item was in which hand. Reflecting back, this may have been because of a language barrier. Again if I was teaching this lesson to a similar group, I'd probably have pictures printed off to represent what I wanted them to do. Another idea I had was to maybe do a "trial" run first, so that she could understand the concept of closing her eyes, putting her hands out in front of her, feeling two items, and guessing which was which. Thinking back again, I think my directions to her may also not have been clear. When working with English Language Learners, it's very important to give very simple and clear instructions, and I'm not sure I did that with her. This is something we've talked about a lot in 276 and also in many of my other classes. This is actually an accommodation we had to make for our Bag-It project. This maybe something I can work on next in order to move towards my goal.

EXCEEDS: I went over the word count and I commented on Kacie's post