Sample LessonsBelow you will be able to find samples of engaging and lovable lessons/projects that I did with my fourth grade students.
4th Grade Math - An informal assessment truly testing my students on their application of knowledge of area and perimeter.
When one of my students told me, "I just don't understand why learning area and perimeter is even important," I took the challenge of finding a way to apply our knowledge in a meaningful way. After using area and perimeter to design fictitious gardens in my backyard, I had students help me with a grandeur situation. I brought into class multiple sized canvases and tubes of paint to show my students. Showing my students the reason why I needed to know and understand area and perimeter in the case of painting canvases helped them see that there are multiple ways to apply our learning outside of school. 4th Grade English - A lesson starting with a rap, and ending with a game is sure to engage and capture the attention of any fourth grader.
While getting to know my fourth graders, my mentor teacher and I realized that my students still struggled with knowing when to use each of the homophones there/their/they're. By creating a lesson that truly captures my students attention, I was able to help my students remember ways to correctly use either there, their, or they're. 4th Grade Science - A discovery based lab to help students understand the physical property of particle size using different types of sugar.
Studying physical properties can be difficult for some students when they don't realize the necessity and usefulness that science application can bring them. By letting students participate in an inquiry based lesson covering particle sizes, students are able to discover that powdered sugar, brown sugar, granulated sugar, and raw sugar all have different purposes all because of how big or small their particles are. 4th Grade Social Studies - A project capturing the emotions of students helps put them in the shoes of the empresarios that helped Mexico settle Texas.
Social Studies can be a difficult subject for students to comprehend - especially because it happened hundred of years before their own time. Knowing that my students struggled to understand what life was truly like in the 1800's after Mexico won it's independence from Spain, I amped up a project given to me by a teacher on my team. This project helped my students understand what it was like to be the first settlers in Texas. |
Photos from Student Teaching |