Matthew001's blog

today we went to the darwin exhibit. it was very enlightening. we also filled out our paper work for the summer so we can get paid by the hour. which is great. the exhibit at the science center was very well put together. i strongly suggest that people go see it. i hope other people enjoy it is  as much as i did.

 

I have had a great summer in learning places. I loved teaching the children and I hope that they took out of it as much as I did. now that I think about it learning places has done so much this summer and last fall. We designed five sites in which we would be able to teach children while having the space interactive and usable by other people so that educaters and children could learn and build off of what we created. we done so much with the kids and spent so much time with them. just the amount of work spent teaching was a great accomplishment but we had to go beyound that because we had to ensure that the kids got the most of their time; so we had to not only learn the investigations, but understand them inside and out while also actually doing the investigation before hand to ensure that the kids would enjoy it. I learned so much this summer not only about how to teach and what I needed to teach but I also learned a lot about myself in the process. the group of learning places has done so great and done so much but I think that our accomplishments so much more when the obstacles we have over come are taken into consideration. at the begining of the year we did have a rough start but through hard work and an amazing effort by both supervisers and my co-workers we were able to over come them to make this my best year ever as a yes teen.

last week went very well. and was easier because we were off on friday. today i was late and i apolagize, but it was out my control. my mother was having problems with her knee that she had surgery on. i hope that this problem will not cause me to be late again. if this becomes a recurring problem i will try to find a way to work with it and still get to work on time.

this week we started work for the summer. The first todays were not much to talk about they were the normal orientation days where our supervisers just reminded us of all the rules. Wedsday was our the first day we went into our individual groups; we began to work right away. we started with a top activity. we worked on process skils and worked on finding a way to modify activities to make them work with the kids. the next day we reinforced the concept of process skills, did an ice activity, had a group interview with kit, and did an ice activity, and we also journaled. the ice activity was an activity where we got a block of ice and were given several things like a nail, salt, sugar, food coloring, and things of that nature. we then were asked to come up with any questions that we had and write them down. we played with ice and had a lot of fun ( my hands are still red from the food coloring ). we took the all the questions and divided them into to groups investagable and noninvestagable. we did through group discussion. after we sorted them we talked about questions with the word "why" in them. We talked about how many kids would ask these types of questions and that we would have to work with the kids to narrow them down and make them something we could investigate. so to make sure we had the concept down our superviser had each group of two design an activity based on a "why" question that we change and narrowed.

today we were left on our own we had to complete 7 activities. each one had its strong points and weak points. the first one i did was looking at things through water and seeing how it was different i think with a little prompt this activity can be very good for the kids. another activity we did was drawing another persons eye in detail. i think this would be good for over the summer to help teach the kids how to pay attention to small details. i also had to do an activity on color, we had to see how many colors we could make from the three priamry colors, i think this will be one of the most fun for the kids but we should washable paint and give them something to cover their clothes. the activity on illusions was one of my favorite activivties of the day because it showed me how easily the brain and eyes can be tricked. this activity should iclude more illusions but over all was very fun. i ilso did an activivty of electricity which i think may be a little hard for the kids because we were show a light a botton and a batery and we asked to make observations and then try to make a replic that actually worked. if we did this there would be some kids who won't know about how electicity works. so with this one we would need to make sure to help them alot. there were two other activities we did one was drawing using only a mirror and the last was to make up your own activity. i think both would be great. the one where we had to make up our own activity was really great because it will let the kids be as creative as they can with no rules or guidelines other that their imagination.

today i had a great day. although i apoligize profusely for coming in aliitle late. we had college prep today which was all right. we tthen went on to doing an activity that was very fun. we had to pretend that we were investigators and dig througj sand. after we dug through the sand we had to make up a story based on the evidence we found we. over all it was a green day despite our supervisors lieing about having true stories to our investigations that we made. but before we did this activity we had a glass artist named rich come in and show us what is was like to make glass art. this was fun and we made a small piece of art. ovweall today was great it was a very easy day whch is  a relief due to all of my all the stuff going on i my life. such as my mother getting surgery on her shoulder. which is why i was late becuase she can't drive as well so it took a little longer. she is actually doing a lot better know it is a little over 2 weeks since her surgery and she is recovering very well. although is still in pain 

    i can't wait until this summer when we get to start teaching. i hope the kids are as good as they were at adams school last year. but i know they will be. i am sad to say i may be missing some of the first few weeks due to summer school although i am not sure how much i will be missing. on a happier note i got accepted into tec school next year and the year after so now i will be going to a tech school for half of the day then going back to lindbergh for my core class such as math, science, history, and english. hopefuly i will be able to fit in my fianace class during the year so i don't have to go to summer school and miss work. 

i am matthew in learning places and today i had alot we had visiters from new mexico and i got paid to play in the sand and make the second tallest sand castle.