Number The Stars Book Reflection

Throughout the year, 4th grade completes a few novel studies as a class. After observing and planning a novel study with my teacher for Because of Winn Dixie, I was able to plan one on my own. I developed a novel study unit for Number the Stars by Lois Lowry. I chose this book because of it’s difficulty level in order to challenge my students this late in the year. I also chose to use this book and create this unit to make connections to other standards and subject areas that the students are learning about this time of year.

Each week, my Cooperating teacher and I would co-plan for the upcoming week. We would use our three week standards calendar and assessment to plan for each week. We would decide what the students needed to work on more and review based on their assessments from the previous week. We would follow our three week standards calendar to help us decide what to focus on based on the …show more content…
As a result, my students had little to no background knowledge in these subject areas. Due to this, I had to break down a lot of concepts and use many different demonstrations when teaching these subjects. I used many examples and demonstrations to help explain the concepts to my students because so many of them were visual learners. During these demonstrations, I would encourage a deeper level of thinking through discussion and experimentation.

I used many different strategies to get my students involved in my lessons to deepen their understanding. I often used hands on activities and demonstrations so that my students could physically see concepts that were difficult to understand. I used engaging activities to keep my students involved and eager to know more about the concepts we were focusing on. My students were able to easily remember the fun, engaging activities they were able to do and the concepts during these lessons because of their involvement in