1. They are eager to learn.
Looking around at the 26 pairs of eyes that were virtually eyes of strangers, I could see that they all had a genuine interest in the activity they were about to partake in. It may have had something to do with the engaging hands on science activity I was presenting to them, but nevertheless, it was genuine.2. They still need their teacher to model what they are expected to do.
I thought my directions were pretty clear for the first part of the activity. They were to write a list of properties of 4 random objects. Initially they all just sat around with very little pencil moving going on. I had to walk around and prompt each group with what to do. If I had it to do over again I would have done the first one with them so that they knew exactly what was expected.3. They respond well to probing questions.
This one is true of all learners in my opinion, but I especially appreciated how well they responded to my questions. Perhaps this is a practice used by their teacher so they are used to it; but not one student balked at my questions, even when I answered their question with another question...one of my favorite sneaky moves.
4. They occasionally get distracted and like to goof around.
Who doesn't?!! One thing that helped with this was having the students in a cooperative group with assigned roles. For this activity one student was the materials manager, another was the task manager, a third was the recorder, and the last was the reporter.
All in all, I had an amazing time! It really made me realize how much I miss teaching this grade. That being said, there are many occasions when my college students remind me a lot of fifth graders!
