Ms. Walker's "Wise" Tales

Week 3 is in the book.. which is completely wild in my opinion.  This is was my first full 5 day week of animal science with having a short week last week. The highlight of was that we had an Estrous Party for our cow that the class named Connie. We helped Connie prepared for pregnancy, lived through the "heartbreak" of her not getting pregnant, had to help reset her cycle (aka the party), and then celebrated Connie's pregnancy. The students loved the activity, they were super engaged and I think it helped them to understand the estrous cycle a lot better.  Some things I learned from this were setting clear expectations are important and sticking to them. For example, one student wrote BYOB on their invitation which he tried to convince me it just stood for bring your own beef, so I ripped up the invitation and said it is time to start again. This students have been pushing his limits since the beginning.  Fast forward to study hall coverage late that day, I find out the ...

 It has been a short but busy week. Monday we have scheduled off because of MLK day and then Tuesday was a school day. So we only had a 3 day week which consisted of a club period schedule, two hour delay, and a regular schedule if you want even to call it that...each day is most definitely its own adventure.  With a snow day on Tuesday, I picked up my first class of student teaching on Wednesday, Animal Science. You'll never guess the unit...animal reproduction...one girl even prepared me the week before that she would laugh at all of the terms. However, I will say I am blessed and I truly do have pretty good students who were patient with me as I started to get my footing this week.  As I said, we started animal reproduction so that means we got to do two dissections. One Thursday and one Friday. The one dissection was ram testicles and it was challenging, it took me a while to figure out which part was which so on Thursday, my CT and I broke them into two groups and we...

I have survived the first week of student teaching... It was exciting and overwhelming and new and interesting and filled with learning.  Watching all of the new members put on their jackets for the first time, parents being recognized, new chapters being chartered, and seniors receiving their keystone degrees...my heart was full! This week started with mid-convention which was a lot of fun. This was my first mid-winter convention, as well as most of my students and it was cool to experience that along side of them.  Honesdale was also won the ag issues competition while there so they will be headed to National Convention in October, all of the students were shocked and excited! While I was able to go to convention with them, it was a good experience to see what it looked like to have students receiving awards and competing in competitions and how that could work.  The rest of the week I was able to spend in the classroom observing and meeting students and faculty. Tuesda...

 I was able to visit a science teacher in at Honesdale High School. It was cool experience to see a science classroom and a highly experienced teacher in that field.  I visited a teacher with 30 plus years of experience who is actually about to retire, he teaches biodiversity. Not that most teachers teach with a lesson plan the whole time, but I did not see him reference that at all, he was comfortable with what he was teaching. It was cool to see what  it looks like with all that experience under your belt.  Today was all about energy and what energy is, different types, and different forms. When the students came in he told them to takes notes on what was on the board and they had to submit them for a grade. He gave them the about 10-15 minutes of class to do this. Then, he spent the rest of the class going over what they already took notes on. I liked this because it is proven that students will focus on taking notes and not on what you're saying so he was able to...