This week my dyad partner and I finished teaching our last lesson in our unit on bees. Next week our students are writing their own skits from a bee's perspective for the performance assessments. In class on Thursday we asked the students what bee activity they liked best from the unit. It was great to hear them all list the different activities my partner and I created and listen to them give the reasons why it was their favorite. I felt so proud; I couldn't stop smiling.
My partner and I feel so fortunate that we've had a mentor teacher who has given us so much freedom. She gave us the topic, but allowed us to create almost 10 lessons for the entire unit, with her help. Every Wednesday and Thursday she gave us her prep time and helped us develop our lesson ideas into plans.
Our mentor teacher told us that during the student-lead conferences, the students proudly told their parents everything they've done in the bee unit and how it's been one of their favorite thing so far in third grade.
Through out the unit, every lesson was an activity- from learning the bee dance (the way bees communicate) to designing our own scientifically-correct bees out of sculpting clay. A retired teacher who volunteers in the classroom twice a week told my partner and I after the bee dance, that we were so brave to teach an activity like that, and that she didn't try an activity like that until she'd been teaching for five years! This made us feel good.
I'm going to miss my dyad placement. I have learned and grown so much as a pre-service teacher. I feel lucky that I was placed in a choice-community school where I could see educators teaching the way we're learning to teach in our program.
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