Forming A New Nation

Day 1 of teaching: I have never felt more confident after finishing that lesson then ever before!

Today my group and I taught about the birth of our nation. Our PowerPoint presentation was so well put together, we provided the students with a note sheet to follow along and fill in the blanks. We went over classroom rules that we expected the class to follow, and played a student vs. teacher game to keep them engaged throughout the lesson. This came is played like this: if the students are following along, listening to directions and classroom rules then they receive a point, if they are not listening and being disruptive the teachers will get a point. Whoever has more points will receive the prize! The students behaved so well and received 7 points for the day! I was very impressed.

Throughout our lesson we included review slides with 2 questions on what is being taught. The students knew all the answers which tells me 2 things:
1. Our lesson was well put together and we knew the content we were teaching
2. Our note sheet worked to keep students involved during the lesson

At the end of our lesson, the students had to write on a sticky note one of the following
-one thing they learned
-one thing they still have questions about
-one thing they did not understand still
I was very happy to see that every student wrote something that they learned, (like what a preamble is, and the three branches of government) and only the few students who were at band practice during the lesson had questions on what was taught.

All in all I was very happy with my first day of teaching 5th Grade Social Studies!!