Part of learning how to be a teacher is spending time in classrooms and working with children. Over the past few months I have spent time in two different school settings. Below you will find some of the experiences I had working in these programs.

Horizons-on-the-Hudson Elementary School

 

Horizons-on-the-Hudson is a magnet school located in Newburgh, NY. During my time in the school I worked in a preschool classroom. The classroom had 18 children with a head teacher, a teacher assistant, and various aides that worked in the classroom during certain activities. In the classroom there are 4 children receiving speech therapy and 2 children who worked with a one-on-one therapist. The children followed a busy schedule with time allotted for Language Arts instruction, Mathematics instruction, and small group activities. A new feature to the classroom was the incorporation of a block area where the children could explore building. The head teacher was conducting a study where she analyzed student building over a week long period.

During my time spent in the classroom I choose one student to work with and designed an engineering challenge to further develop this child’s building concepts. I began by working with the child and getting to know him. I recognized that the child had a vivid imagination and liked dragons and castles. I then worked with him with designing and building a strong castle that could withstand the force of a dragon attack. The child spent a session building the structure and discussing the building choices he made. To reflect on his work the child drew a diagram of his castle.

 

If you are interested in the details of this study please click the link!

 Engineering Case Study-19oapfy

The Newburgh Armory

The Newburgh Armory Unity Center hosts a Saturday morning enrichment program offered by the Kaplan Foundation. The program was founded and funded by Mr. Bill Kaplan. The program is a free program for the elementary students who attend any of the Newburgh schools. The program offers a variety of fun, hands-on, academic and athletic classes for the students. For this experience I worked primarily in the Engineering 101 and Math Counts classes. I also spent some time in the Kitchen Chemistry program and the Scholars in Scrubs program.

If you would like to learn more about the program please click here to explore the Saturday Morning Enrichment Club.

Engineering 101

In the Engineering 101 class the students worked with K’nex to design and construct various different structures and machines. On one of my visits the students were reviewing their work with pulleys and applied this knowledge to constructing a sewing machine. The challenge for the day was for the students to adapt a K’nex machine and turn it into a sewing machine.  The teacher explained how last week they learned about pulleys, and this week they will loop back to pulleys and then build forward. They then called the class outside of the classroom to watch a pulley demonstration. The teacher hooked a volunteer up to a harness and pulley system outside of the classroom. The students then took turns pulling on the rope to hoist the volunteer into the air. The teacher reviewed how the pulley system worked and how there are four folds in the pulley.

I then spent the remainder of time working with the groups of students to analyze and reconstruct a sewing machine using K’nex. The students loved working with K’nex and were able to recreate most of the sewing machine.

I wanted to include this class because it was a very rich experience. I learned a lot about the versatility of K’nex and the infinite possibilities of building with K’nex. I feel that the method of circling back and reflecting is a great frame for curriculum. I like how the teacher launched the lesson by reflecting on their work from the week before and providing a real-world experience with the pulley and harness. Not only did this grab the student’s attention but they were able to apply their knowledge from the previous week. I also learned a lot about some engineering concepts and methods. The students were asked to apply their knowledge of a pulley and construct a model of a sewing machine based off an example. Students were able to analyze a structure and how each part connected and worked. They were able to explore the planning, designing, and building process of engineering a structure or model.

Personally this was my first time working with K’nex. If you would like to learn more about this manipulative then click here.