Climate- Full Day 8/25

Today was the first day where I was in charge of planning and creating the entire lesson.
The plan went as follows:
- Bell Ringer from yesterday
- Opener about what their favorite season is
- SN about the 8 different climates while taking notes on an organizer I gave them
- Activity where they are assigned a postcard representing a climate
- Closer saying where they would most like to live and where they would least like to live

Positives:
- I think the transition from the opener to into the SN went really well. I got three different answers for favorite seasons and then said that it would be difficult to get varying answers in other climates because we are lucky enough to live in a place that has all four seasons. We then talked about the fact that our first climate, tropical, only had one season, etc.
- I answered questions and walked around the room a lot. I still feel good about the fact that I feel very comfortable talking to the kids and building off of the things they say.
- Connecting who had gone on vacation/ past knowledge/ how could we adapt to live there all went really well so that the material was not just isolated.
- The post card activity seemed to go pretty well, they liked getting places that they had heard of. Minor hiccup when some of them wanted to switch cards, but it showed that they wanted something they could be interested in.
- I loved when Dylan said "Isn't Pakistan the terrorist nation" and I got to have a little discussion about how that isn't true. That mini discussion was probably the highlight of the class for me.
-The students listened to me when I said incorporate the characteristics of the climate type in the answers to the closer questions which was nice. Even though the used their notes, repetitive talk about weather and living conditions seemed to make the ideas about the types sink in.

Negatives:
- I did not give enough wait time for the kids to talk about their favorite season and why. I really just wanted to make a small connection and move on, but I suppose waiting a while and telling the high up kids to continue writing as much as they could about the reasons would have helped get everyone on that same page.
- The Bell Ringer stuff was a little uncomfortable because I did not know that Mike wanted me to take over that part as well as the set
- As a result, I did not have the objectives or SPIs on the board which I should have done. I need to think of a creative way of doing this and to remind myself because I usually think that this is self evident when it really isn't.
- My SN was not well designed (color/font needs to be bigger)
- Drawing the examples on the map was a form of modeling but I probably should have found a way to continue that throughout the lecture so that they would continue to have that in their notes as a reference point.
- I was worried that they would mix up degrees latitude and the degrees in terms of temperature when I was actually the one who did that. Mike caught it soon enough, and the kids hardly even noticed, but I was really embarrassed. I feel like I covered it well but there really isn't an excuse for those types of mistakes.
- I don't know how to put information up one thing at a time on the SN yet.
- I wanted the students to move before sharing their cards because they looked so passive and asleep, but I need a better game plan for that as well. Maybe the other side of the room?
***I ended 20 minutes early and had nothing else to give them. I hate that I let that happen also. Another really embarrassing point when I had to ask what to do next.

Overall:
- I got a C, and I felt horrible about how the lesson went at the time, but I'm better with it now. I wish I had not ended early, but I won't really know how long activities are going to take until I get through them. For future reference, I would like to have some game like a crossword puzzle or wordfind just so there is a back up plan. If they never use them they never use them.
- I still talk too fast

*Sidenote: three students did not bring their maps this morning which makes me upset, I don't quite know how to handle this yet. I want to hold them to a high standard, but a policy that isn't mine has already been established.