First day with the grade 3456s September 4: first two labs: silly putty and Lego robot (nonrobotized)
I've never taught anything below grade 8 before. The prospect of a collection of 7-12-year-olds was quite terrifying! In this job I teach these courses: Grade 9 10 11 math Grade 9 10 science Grade 7 8 math Grade 7 8 science and, not mentioned at time of hiring... Grade 3 4 5 6 science. Luckily two other aides came into the classroom at the same time too, so it was actually kind of relaxed considering how terrifying it was. Anyway, I pulled out two good labs to start with: Lego, and, silly putty. Since I had NO IDEA what to do with such young people I gave them all a handful of Lego at the beginning of class. Then, the aides made them behave really well and not touch the Lego while I was talking. That was impressive. They actually didn't touch it until I said okay. So I said "what should we have for a challenge" and someone said robot and they were all down with that. I should have taken better photos, but anyway, I feel inspired. They're good at Lego and ...