Last week I taught my first graders my first lesson. The lesson was on ABC order which was a hard topic for children age s 6 and 7 years old to grasp. I came up with a perfect idea for introducing the topic to them. I played the Just Kids ABC by Jackson 5 for them to sing and dance to to give them a refresher of the ABC's. After the song I had the students sit down quietly as I asked "Who can tell me their ABC's?" I called on multiple students and they all got them right except Morgan. This helped me see who actually did know their ABC's. After that, I showed them how ABC order works with 3 different words and asked them to put it in ABC order for me. The kids really tried their best and actually did quite well; better than I expected. After that, I split them up into groups (tables) and handed them sets of cards to put in ABC order. They also had a chart of the alphabet to refer to for the order of the ABC's. I had the groups as they finished give me an "OH YEAH!" (their favorite thing to do) to signal that they were doing well. After the first round, i switched up the groups and offered candy for the groups that finish quickly and correctly. The next activity for them was a worksheet about using the dictionary. I introduced what a dictionary was and showed them how to find specific words and that the words are in ABC order! For the activity, the students had to find a word, draw a picture of the word, write the definition, and then write the word before the word, the word, and the word after the word. I gave them about 15 mins to complete the worksheet.
The kids seemed to do really well with my teaching and were very attentive and cooperating. I did have to give them a mighty groan (they hate these more than anything!) for talking when they were supposed to be listening.
If I could improve on anything from my lesson, I would probably work on not being so afraid to punish them. It might hurt their feelings, but its the best thing to do for the classroom.
The kids seemed to do really well with my teaching and were very attentive and cooperating. I did have to give them a mighty groan (they hate these more than anything!) for talking when they were supposed to be listening.
If I could improve on anything from my lesson, I would probably work on not being so afraid to punish them. It might hurt their feelings, but its the best thing to do for the classroom.