When the long-anticipated teaching day finally arrived, my team and I were feeling a mixture of both excitement and nerves. We knew that we were well-prepared, but it’s still pretty intimidating knowing that you are the only ones in charge of these kids and that everything you say will have an impact on them. When we saw all of the kids walking in, we took a big deep breath, held up our team number so they could find us, and waited for our big moment. Our ten kids eventually found their way to us and we began by sitting them down in our designated spot. We introduced ourselves and got to know their names and a little bit about their personalities by using fun name game that one of our team members, Abbie, came up with. They each told us their name, what their name would be if they were a chicken, and what they ate for breakfast. Many of them had eaten eggs, which was exactly what we were counting on because that was a perfect segue into introducing what we would be teaching them about: Chickens! We explained to them all the activities we were going to do with them, and then we got right into it. Next, it was time for our “Chicken True or False” game that we had come up with. We gave each 4th grader an index card that had a statement about chickens on it, and the kids had to work together to sort themselves into a “true” group and a “false” group. Then, we talked about why they thought certain things were true or false and gave them the actual correct facts. It was really cool to see the kids working collaboratively and to see their faces light up with wonder when we shared with them a surprising fact. We really felt like we had succeeded in making learning fun for them. After that, all that was left was to go into the coop and see the chickens. Once in the coop, we gave the kids some freedom, allowing them to explore the different aspects of the space. Each of the team members was in charge of a different area. Abbie was the best at holding the chickens, so she picked them up and showed the kids how to pet them. Stephanie and Gabby made sure the kids stayed under control around the chickens and even helped the kids feed them some grass, which they of course thought was the coolest thing ever. I showed the kids the eggs that the chickens had laid that day and also taught them some parts of the chicken using a diagram. After our time in the coop, it was sadly time to say goodbye to that group of 4th graders and hello to the next. We taught our lesson to three groups of kids, gaining confidence and improving each time. Overall, the experience was incredible and very eye-opening. I realized that I really enjoy working with kids, and I feel like I now have a lot of tools in my belt to do something like this again in the future. I am very grateful for my time spent in BioSite.
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