Candice Seawright Teaching Science to Children Mrs.

McClary April 21, 2014 Science Teaching Material I was assigned to do my field observation at Brookdale Elementary School and by chance I was assigned to Mr. Burgess, a fifth grade science teacher. He told me that to make science more interesting, you have to have a variety of science materials. What I have noticed most about the hands-on activities Mr. Burgess did, was that he always used science materials to enhance learning. I could not imagine students actually doing and actually learning from a science lesson without science materials to help students hands on. I do believe Mr. Burgess did a great job with utilizing the science materials that were available to him at Brookdale Elementary School. Even though I was only able to see the students in his class go into the science lab once to do a lesson on mixtures and solutions, he still incorporated a lot of the materials in the lesson. As I have mentioned before, Mr. Burgess used a lot of materials during his mixtures and solutions activity. Students had to participate in an activity that helped them distinguish between a mixture and a solution. The objectives of lesson was that students would be able to know what a mixture and solution is and how to distinguish between the two. The materials involved in the activity were water, beakers, sand, salt and vegetable oil and spoons. Students were to take the beaker filled with water (all three beakers containing the same amount) and stir in each ingredient (sand, salt and vegetable oil) and decided whether or not each beaker contain a

mixture or solution while answering analysis questions during the experiment. On the activity worksheet, students had to answer which material was the solvent, solute and the solution. Even though I did not get to see the entire lesson, I believe this activity was definitely one the students enjoyed because they got to see different mixtures hands on and understand them better with the help of the science materials. Some of the science materials that were used during this lesson were beakers. These beakers helped students with placing the same amount of water in all three beakers. Students could use the measurements on the beakers to help them have an accurate amount of water. Another materials that were used was sand, water, salt, vegetable oils and a spoon. I do not consider any of these items to be science materials but they did help enhance the lesson to increase student learning and comprehension. However, there were other science materials in the science laboratory. I noticed graduated cylinders, microscopes and cups I am sure Mr. Burgess has used in other experiments with his class. In the science laboratory, there were also different textbooks and children literature students could read on a particular subject. These were books that helped students in the area of science. There were books on motion and force, different objects that sink or float and gravity just to name a few. These books were on a movable cart that students are free to read at any time. There were also videos students could watch to enhance to learning. However, these books were located in the library. The teacher would actually have to go and pick out the video that correlated the lesson content students was learning about. Continuing on with technology, students also had access to technology to help them with the different science lessons. In Mr. Burgess classroom, there was a Smart Board students could go to and to work problems out or watch a You Tube videos about that specific lessons. There is

also science posters located in Mr. Burgess classroom along with the science kits students use very often in their classrooms.