Wouldn't it be great if every student came running into your classroom excited about hearing you teach every day? It seems like a stretch...right? I know it doesn't happen every single day, but I do try to make my class fun and engaging.
I like to get my students excited about any new topics that are introduced throughout the school year. I do this by "advertising" the new unit about a week before we take a test on the current unit. It's good to hang up questions or pictures that will be used during the next unit. It gets the students talking about my class. Can you believe that I actually had students, eighth grade boys, meet me after lunch to "settle a debate" about a preview question that had been hanging on my classroom wall for two days? I try to make DAY 1 of a new unit very hands-on. It's the first impression. For our acids and bases unit, I set up 14 observation stations around the classroom. Students had to walk around tasting, smelling, touching, and looking at a variety of things that were either an acid or a base. What an engaging way to let the students explore science! I hadn't taught them a thing yet. They were responsible for making predictions after every experience. Towards the end of class, we met as a whole group and discussed the predictions. Then, we compared what all the acidic things had in common. Students came up with a list of properties that described acids. They were so excited to see if their predictions were right or wrong that they didn't even moan when they had to write in their interactive notebooks. Click on the picture below or click HERE to see the whole lesson.
0 Comments
Your comment will be posted after it is approved.
Leave a Reply. |