Importance of Teaching Geography

The Geography Game Cards

Geography is an important topic to instruct to our students. It is knowing where places are and understanding that their characteristics are important. Geography is the study of places on Earth and their relationships with each other. It is important to start off this study of geography by relating it to the students personal lives, such as, their home, school and community. As a result of geography dealing with where and how people live, it is rich in material that relates to international understanding, environmental education and multi-cultural concerns. This topic is extremely important to instruct to students. Today in class we played a card game/activity with our peers. The class split into four groups and answered specific questions concerning geography. By playing this game I learned more about specific mountains, continents and oceans. This was a great way to engage all of the students and reflect on our previous knowledge.

...And That's a Wrap!!!

Friday, March 15th was our final session at Bishop Dunn with the fourth graders and my last day to teach. We had the students discuss and reflect on their Biz Movie experience. The students had to think about questions such as, what did they like the most, what would you change, what challenges did you come across, and suggestions for the future. After the students reflected as companies and a class, it was time for the Biz Movie Awards. Our group hosted an award ceremony for the students congratulating them on a job well done. We made certificates for the companies and handed out trophies. The students got to view the movies and be proud of all they accomplished. This Biz Movie process was definitely a lot of work but overall it was a great experience. Both the students and us teacher candidates learned a lot from this process.  I truly enjoyed teaching and working with the students.

Movie Making Time

On Wednesday March 13th, my group taught our second lesson. This lesson started with the students making some predictions about their companies and movies. The companies needed to predict how much their total profit would be, what movie would be most profitable with the 2nd graders, and which movie would they go see outside of their own. The students were actively involved, thinking about their predictions. After this we started working on our movies. I thought is was smart and effective to continue on working on the movies for most of the lesson to allow the students to get a lot done. My group worked well together and were focused throughout the "filming" process. My fellow teacher candidates and I worked with the students recording their voices while they read the scripts and taking their pictures. Overall, the students worked well to complete the movie in order to gain a successful profit.

Taking the Reins: My Turn to Teach!

Today was my groups first day to teach. At first I was a bit nervous about teaching, although as soon as my group got going my nerves seemed to ease. As a group we taught the students new vocabulary terms using a direct instruction lesson plan. The terms were related to financing and valuing the companies. We instructed terms such as assets, debt, liabilities, income statement, and tax. After we instructed the terms we had the students work together as companies to make sentences using as many of the terms that they just learned as they could. We ended the lesson by having the students get together and work on completing their movies. It’s exciting to see the movies start to come along. I can’t wait to see the finished products.

From today’s lesson I noticed we need to still make sure to address the students as companies opposed to “guys”. I feel that over time and practice this is something that will get better. Overall the lesson was good. I wish that the companies could have gotten more involved when we were reviewing terms with them. I was a little surprised that out of all the companies today our group, Jack DL was the most involved and responsive to our questions. I’m proud of my group, we were prepared and I think our lesson went well.