ELED 3223 Reflection Elizabeth Blackwell

Dear John,

For my social studies lesson, my teacher gave me some ideas about what she

thought would be good for me to teach. The students had been working on their

International Fair projects and learning about People and Culture in North

Carolina. She usually taught them a concept or an idea from their social studies

book and then they went back in their social studies workbook and read more

about the topic and answered questions. After looking at the lesson in the

students workbook, I decided to do a lesson on celebrations in North Carolina

and use the 3 regions as how to differentiate the people and culture. I was also

going to incorporate new vocabulary for the students such as: Traditions and

Customs. I was able to find pictures from all kinds of different celebrations in

North Carolina. It was interesting to find all the different celebrations in the

regions that I never knew about. I told my teacher about my ideas and she

thought they were awesome and was excited to see where I would take it.

First, I showed the students pictures of different celebrations around North

Carolina, and asked them what they think they were. Once we talked about

some of the celebrations, I introduced the words Tradition and Customs and

asked the students to tell me what they think they were. Many of the students

knew what they were and could list some examples, as some other students

were not quite sure.

Then I incorporated the 3 regions of North Carolina in, and asked the

students what kind of celebration they think might be celebrated in those

ELED 3223 Reflection Elizabeth Blackwell

particular regions. I read off some facts and celebrations that I felt were

interesting and played a big part in the particular regions. After that, I told the

students to think about some of the traditions or celebrations they do and gave

everyone a sticky note. On that sticky note, the students were supposed to write

a tradition they celebrate and why. The students then placed their sticky notes

near the front of the room and we read what some of them said and discussed

even further different celebrations.

As an assessment, the students answered the following questions: What is

a tradition? What is a custom? Can you name one tradition or custom that is

celebrated in NC? What region?

Overall I felt that my lesson went pretty well. It wasnt perfect but I really enjoyed

myself when teaching it and students were awesome and super engaged. My

cooperating teacher also agreed that I had great confidence in what I was

teacher and that I came out of my shell when I was teaching.