March 30th (Lesson Day 1)

Today was the first day of my lesson. It was the first lesson I have ever taught to students. I taught about Chimera, which is a mythical creature from Greek mythology. A PowerPoint was presented with an engaging activity for two volunteers. They were asked to draw examples for the rest of the class on the board. They seemed to enjoy it and got a good laugh out of it as well. I then showed them the supplies they were expected to use and went over the criteria. It went well and they were engaged and listening the majority of the time. Once I had their attention, they seemed to be pretty enthralled in the subject. I never had to use the chat box and they were very well behaved. The teacher even gave them a star at the end of the day. The students were busy at work the entire time and were very excited about the project. Many of them told me that they thought the project was fun. One student even said, "I love this teacher!" I have to admit, it felt great to have them respond so well to my lesson. The project was done with charcoal and chalk on paper. I did not do a demonstration for the sake of time, and the teacher does not typically give a demonstration for working with charcoal and chalk for the 8th graders. I followed in her footsteps assuming that they could figure it out on their own with practice. Looking back, it would have been best to do a demonstration. It would have also helped if I reminded them to use up the entire piece of paper. I learned a lot of details that I missed out on in this lesson that I will definitely remember for the next time.