Mama Mindy's Week 6 of Classes: Rested and Tired at the same time

Hi friends!

Re-cap:  Last week I had taken a Biology test that I wasn't quite sure I studied enough for...I will find out the results of that particular test during Week 7 of classes.

This week's re-cap:

This semester I am taking 13 credit hours, which doesn't sound like a lot...but I am actually taking 5 courses.

Elementary Music (2 hours). Took our Mid-term.  Nothing more.  Next week, we teach our "piggy back" song using phrase-rote method.

Advanced Instructional Technology (3 hours).  This is the class that we kind of do technology but mostly we learn about ways to critically think about teaching through active-learning.  In class, we had to figure out how to move a ball from one room into another without getting within 10 ft. of it having nothing but metal clips tied to rope that is about 15' in length, a orange plastic circle, a orange plastic oblong, and two elastic deflated rubber tubes.  Turns out you hook all the rope to the tube and use each of the classmates to stretch it over the ball and then walk it into the other room.  Originally the ropes and clips were connected to the orange plastic circle and we "assumed" that we had to get the ball to balance on it...we were wrong.  The point of the lesson, "Do not assume that your students will understand a concept that you understand."  No class next week...as the class only meets twice per month.

Homework left as of today:  Visit a listed 2.0 website and critique it's usefulness for future classroom usage and submit to Project 6 folder on the flashdrive. Create an excel grading spreadsheet or find one on-line that I like and type about the pros and cons of it as well as save it to my folder marked Project 7 on the flashdrive.

Math for Elementary Ed & Middle School Teachers I (3 hours). We learned about mental math and divisibility.  Those concepts sound tricky, but really quite easy for students to understand once they know what the terms mean. 

Homework left as of today:  Two sections of homework (book only)

Field & Lab Biology (3 hours).  Went to an all-day "It's Raining Resources Workshop" to receive free resources for future classroom usage.  The morning session was showcased around one special lady, Linda Pruski, a Educational Development Specialist from the University of Texas Health Science Center.  She taught us how we can teach our students about health while teaching other subject matter.  Best of all...she let us take home anything we wanted that were on the tables.  Many of the activities involved aging and since I still teach at Wichita State in the Aging Studies department, I know have a contact to share with my colleagues. :)  During our working lunch, we had brief presentations from our local 4H chapter (apparently it isn't just for farm kids--common misconception I held as did others--but where I lived, it only seemed like the farm kids went to 4H) and the Kansas Foundation for Agriculture in the classroom.  I loved this lady (Cathy Musik) as she taught us how to incorporate math and science by using corn and pumpkins, plus she gave us a book chock-full of ideas for projects in the classroom.  Yes...an actual B-O-O-K...and not a thin one either.  (If you are a teacher past or present, you know how great the mention of Free and Book are in the same sentence).  In the afternoon session, we had the Kansas Association for Conservation and Environmental Education (KACEE) workshop for use in the upcoming Butler Community College Water Festival--us BEST students and the Butler County Conservation District along with KACEE work together to engage students in learning about water in an exciting all-day activity-filled extravaganza for the local 4th grade students in the Butler County area (Note: Butler County is the largest county in Kansas...although not the most populated...but that's A LOT of kids).  The activities we learned were super fun and we got a book at the end that has all sorts of lesson plans called, "Project Wet."  Its a great resource book to have and I cannot wait until the water festival (October 15th).
The Butler County Conservation District (Sandy Koontz) made this day possible along with BEST program...Sandy Koontz got our fees for the "Project Wet" workshop reduced to only $15 and she supplied the rest of the funds which was I think $60+ per pre-service teacher of which sixteen of us were there in the afternoon to participate.   The BEST Program (a combination of Butler County College and Emporia State University) got us the free lunch and the space for the event. My instructor, Tonya Kershner, made this event happen.
Let's just say...all great things happen because great people come together to make the difference...kind of like blogville. :)

Elementary Art (2 hours).  This week we looked at Chapter's 3 & 4 in the book dealing with how to manage the art classroom and how to motivate students to produce the best artwork possible.  The project this week focused on Language Arts and Art.  I did a "Dr. Seuss inspired" character drawing based on the book, "There's a Wocket in My Pocket." 

I thought I would share the two artworks I have created.  First, the Vincent Van Gogh inspired still-life from last week's Artist/Art History and Art.  Second, the Dr. Seuss inspired art project.

So...next week, I have class M, W-F...because art class meets for the 2nd time of the semester (only two meetings after this next Friday left).

Much Love,
Mama Mindy :)