Mrs.

Mims Class Introduction

Good afternoon parents! I have gotten the pleasure to briefly meet some of you throughout the semester, but for those of you I have not met, my name is Shannon McDevitt and I have had the wonderful opportunity to work as Mrs. Mims lab student for the semester. As a part of my responsibility, I have been working with your children on four content areas. Each of these learning techniques emphasizes and creates different educational experiences for the students and caters to auditory, kinesthetic and visual learners. I wanted to take the time to explain what these areas consist of and also to include some of your childrens favorites!

November 30, 2012 Math Games

This technique of teaching math through games creates a stress-free environment where the children are not being tested or graded on how many games he/she wins or loses, but rather the ideas they put forth when applying their knowledge to each game. Although the children think they are just playing, they are actually practicing one-to-one correspondence, experiencing trial and error and even creating strategies independently. The children had the opportunity to choose from six different math games each week. Some of their favorite games were Connect Four, Go Fish, Hop To It, 50 Chips and Concentration.

Shared Reading
One of the biggest goals we try to reach through the Shared Reading process is to model to the children the way we read text. Throughout a short three weeks, the children were engaged in hands on activities that challenged skills such as predicting, self-correction, letter-sound association, letter recognition and many other advantageous tasks to help each student become a successful reader, listener and speaker. Some of the childrens favorite books were: If You Give A Mouse A Cookie, The Napping House, Click Clack Moo: Cows That Type and Mrs. Wishy Washy

Dont forget to turn over, there is more on the back!

Physical Knowledge
These three weeks were referred to as the science experiment weeks. At the beginning of each week, the children would begin their experiment by creating hypotheses (pictured) based on the experiment for that particular week. The first week, the children got to bowl within our classroom. The objective of this experiment was for the children to figure out how to create the best bowling alley. They did this by testing out which ball worked best, what material inside the bottle was easiest to knock over, what pin formation was the best and so on. The second week, the children were engaged in color exploration activities that continuously portrayed what color you can make when you mix primary colors together. Throughout this week, the children made Monster Bread, Oobleck and got to create secondary colors using shaving cream and paint. The final week, the children made predictions about whether objects sink or float, and constructed a tin foil boat independently. Later in the week they tested their boats as they experimented with different objects inside of it.

Mini Theme- Shark Group

I had the opportunity to work with six students on constructing a Great White Shark. The first week, we created a KWL chart about Great Whites, researched our questions on the Internet and read many books learning about the Great White Shark. Then as a team, the children brainstormed ideas, gathered materials and worked together to create their own Great White Shark to live in the yellow pod. The children worked very hard on their shark and take great pride in the final product! I could not be more proud of them and all the effort they put into their creation!

Shark Group Friends: Jackson, DongHyun, Mary McKinnon, Isaac, Tucker and Trey.

Thank You!
The children really enjoyed making Oobleck during our color exploration week. Here is the recipe to make it at home: 1 cup of water 1 cup of cornstarch Food coloring (any color) Directions: Simply mix together and enjoy!
It has been an absolute pleasure working with your children this semester. Each and every one of them has a very special place in my heart. I am so excited to come back and visit them next semester and see all the progress they have made! They truly are a wonderful bunch of kids and I will miss spending my mornings with them! Please dont hesitate to contact me if you have any questions, comments or concerns! Have a wonderful weekend! Shannon McDevitt- SLM0022@auburn.edu