Second Grade for the Win

Today, my group had to teach the second grade once again. For our second lesson, we worked on developing our Inquiry teaching skills. We began the lesson by first activating students prior knowledge. This was done simply by asking students questions about what we learned during our Direct Lesson. With each answer, my group members and I built off of each others ideas in order to get through the key terms and ideas for the entire chapter. 

Once finished with that, we brought back the Patrick Henry Voki that the students seemed to love during our first lesson. Along with Patrick Henry, we introduced a Voki of all of the students' favorite patriot, Paul Revere. Together, Patrick Henry and Paul Revere said the following dialog to introduce the problem: 

Patrick Henry: Hello again boys and girls! I hope you all remember that my name is Patrick Henry. My friend, Paul Revere thinks that he knows more about American History than the second grade class does! Do you boy and girls agree with him?

Paul Revere: Well of course they agree with me. I was there, wasn't I Patrick?

Patrick Henry: But these boys and girls just learned all about American History. I know that they can tell you all about it!

Paul Revere: Is that so? Well how about this...I am going to give each group four clues and you will have to use those clues to find out my secret answer. Do you boys and girls think you are up for the challenge?

Unfortunately, we were hit with the fact that technology doesn't always work the way that you want it to in the classroom. Our Voki videos would not work, so we had to do the dialog one by one instead of clicking back and forth on the videos in our PowerPoint. Regardless, the students absolutely loved these Voki's. They all responded with so much enthusiasm, and it was clear that Voki's are a very engaging and interactive way to introduce a topic or problem starter. 

Before handing out the clues, we first went over how to be a good problem solver. We put special emphasis on the hypothesis, where we modeled how to create an "if...then..." statement for the students. We then handed out a data sheet, which consisted of five sections for students to write down their hypothesis and conclusion, for each of our five "Who or What am I?"'s 

The last thing that we did before handing out the clues was to explain that students would choose one clue from the clue bags and write their hypothesis. After writing their hypothesis, they would then read or view the last three clues in order to come up with their groups conclusion. 

Who or What am I? Activity

After completing the activity, we had each table present one set of the Who or What am I? clues, their hypothesis, and their conclusion. Before having them present this information, Ms. Patricia, Ms. Jean, Ms. Julia, and I went over how to be good presenters and the fact that hypotheses are not always correct. We also made sure that each group had their clue set correct before they went up to the board. We purposely had one group, who had their hypothesis wrong, do the clue set for Paul Revere. 

Paraphrasing what was said: 

"This group's hypothesis was not correct, but you can tell they took an educated guess. The first clue that they picked was "I am a patriot". Patrick Henry was a patriot, so it makes sense that they would guess him for their hypothesis. After more clues, they realized that the answer was Paul Revere. Paul Revere is correct! Great job boys and girls!"

 {The other clue set answers were George Washington, The Declaration of Independence, Independence Day, and the American Revolution}

Overall, the lesson went very well. All of the groups finished almost all of the clue sets with enthusiasm and proper structure. They once again showed us how much information they were able to retain and understand. I feel completely confident in doing our last lesson this Friday!