My first day of teaching was quite nerve wracking. I tried to tell myself that it would be okay, that I would sail through easily. I even tried to comfort myself by the fact that my audience was a class of 4th graders, and asked myself how hard could it be? It would seem that I did not do enough to convince myself because as soon as I stood before the class words escaped me. After introducing myself I did not know what else to say. I asked the rest of the class to introduce themselves as a way of buying time.
Critical 4th Graders
Within no time I found that these children could see through anything I could not just make up things and expect them to take it as gospel truth. The questions that followed ensured I was well prepared for any eventuality. You see science has always been perceived as a male dominated field, I do not know who told the children the same thing.
Each time I brought up a technical topic they would ask questions to find out if I really knew what I was talking about. This experience taught me that I should come up with
easy 4th grade science< projects that would not stir up a lot of controversy for my young minds. Children now days seem to have an idea about anything, I do not know if it is the television, internet or just media in general that is doing the informing.
This is a good thing though because this informing makes my easy 4th grade science projects seem like a walk in the park. When children have an idea what you are talking about your job is half way done what is left up to you is to connect the dots for them. I remember when we carried out our first test after one of the easy 4th grade science projects, let us just say that ninety per cent of the class passed very well.
Working with the curriculum
When I saw how this kind of working helped in covering the curriculum I went through the whole curriculum to revise some of the projects that I had drawn up. These were the experiments I thought would work in delivering the curriculum to my class. I replaced most of these projects with the new easy 4th grade science projects which I found were more useful in delivering the subject of science to young children.
To make my experiments more interesting I allocated each student a role on a rotational basis. I prefer when each person participates so that the whole class feels they are included and appreciated in the class. When this kind of recognition takes place children feel good about the class and look forward to it. Can you imagine a child getting home to explain to his parents on how he led the class on an experiment on light! The child will appreciate science and the contribution it has in our world.
