BioSite Post #1

Training

For our service project, Natalia, Emily, Alaysia, and I signed up for BioSite. We were interested in doing this project because we found out that we would be teaching little fourth graders. Then we realized that we couldn't just start teaching right away. We needed to train just as teachers do in order to prepare for our project. So, we came in every week on Tuesdays during tutorial to train with a nice lady called Buret (I'm not sure how it's spelled). On our first day of training, we came in to the class and we got to dissect a Brussel sprout. At first, my group and I thought it was kind of pointless, but the Buret explained to us something that made lots of sense. She told us that the best way for kids to learn, was with hands-on learning and suddenly we realized that we had just done that! For the next few weeks we got to do cool things, like examine a pile of compost, study some lima beans and dissecting them, learning about chickens, and learning about recycling and how long it takes certain things to decompose. On our last 2 weeks before the 4th graders came, we started forming our groups and learning what station we would be teaching at. We also started forming a plan and making fun little activities to keep the 4th graders entertained. It was a little challenging to form a lesson plan because we didn't know how much time we would be spending in each station and we were worried that we wouldn't have enough time to get through the whole lesson per station. Then, Buret gave us some blue backpacks with lots of stuff in there that would help us, so that was very helpful and appreciated. Natalia and I also worked on being more confident, smiling a lot more and having positive vibes so that the kids could feel more comfortable. Overall, it was a very interesting few weeks and I wouldn't mind doing it again.