 Good morning, everyone. Welcome back to my channel. If you are new here, my name is Charlotte and I am a third-grade teacher in Arizona in the Phoenix area. Today is a special day because it is my formal observation day. Now, I know what you're wondering. Charlotte, what on earth are you wearing? Well, I'm wearing jeans and a t-shirt because I work in an avid school and on Wednesdays, we wear college t-shirts and jeans. So I'm not gonna switch up my wardrobe just for an observation. I find that it is better to show your principal what you do on a daily basis rather than make it a dog and pony show when they come in to observe you. So I am wearing what I would normally wear on a school day, which is just jeans, a t-shirt, and I dressed it up a little bit with my cardigan. It's not even a cardigan. It's like a what is this called? Camono, I guess. And I'm wearing Birkenstocks. This is what I always wear on a Wednesday. So like I said, I'm not gonna do anything extra special. I did wake up extra early this morning. Well, and when I say extra early, I mean like on time. To wash my hair, put my face on, which I usually put my face on. I've skipped a few days, but you know, everybody skips a few days. And so I'm gonna really quickly just blow-dry my hair and maybe put a little curl on it. Maybe not. Just because it is 648, I'm here 10 minutes earlier than normal. And then after I do that, you guys, my room is completely different probably than the last time you saw it, and I'm actually probably gonna change it again right now just because yesterday my principal pulled me aside and said, Charlotte, I'm giving you two of Mandy's students. Tomorrow, the day of my observation, I'm getting two brand new students. They are two of Mandy's kiddos. So if you didn't know, Mandy teaches the ELD classroom, and if you don't know what ELD is, it's English Language Development. They focus on a completely different set of standards than we do in here. Yes, we try to do things together at the same time, but they focus on different learning targets than we do. So two of their students were non-ELD students, meaning that they passed Azele. They don't need English language acquisition. They don't need English language standards. So they're gonna be moved in here so that they can be exposed to the regular ELA standards of Common Core. So they are starting today. I have the space for them. However, I wanted to, now that I have 24 students, I wanted to create six groups of four students. So I have six tables or six groupings, and I move them into a formation, but I think I'm gonna change it back to the way it used to be and have my desk facing them so that my back is to the board, and then I just have to move like this table and this table to a new spot. So I'll just do that real quick this morning. And then I'm going to, I'm gonna actually show you guys the lesson and walk you through my plan for my observation lesson, for you to see, and also for me to like go through it one more time. I don't ever like create like this crazy like lesson that I would never do for an observation. I always do something that I would normally do. I don't try to go above and beyond and like create this dog and pony show. I do what I normally do because my students deserve an observation quality lesson every day, every time. So I will show you what we're gonna do today after I'm done with my hair. Okay, so now that I've moved some things around and blow-dried my hair, decided not to curl it because I don't have time. So I moved the tables around and this is the new layout. So I have table one, table two, table three, sorry three, four, five, and six. Each table has four students and they all have regular chairs. There's no like flexible seating options except for my kickband over there. So everybody has the same stuff. Oh, and I do have one wobble stool right there just for student need. So let me now walk you through. So now I have all this empty space back and I have all this empty space back, which is great. Yes, I'm loving that. Okay, so I'm gonna just walk you guys through the lesson that I'm gonna do. So my objective today is I can read to explain the job of each part of the plant. So this is gonna be an overall objective that runs through a couple of days. Today is just day one and you guys are gonna see students first names. I'll try hard not to like zoom in on them, but it is what it is. They're just first names. So basically what we're gonna do is the kids have already set up their science notebooks. Aside from my two new students, they need to glue some stuff in today. The left side is the passage or article they're gonna read and then on the right side is some stuff they're gonna do. So I'm gonna just bring this over here real quick. Okay, so I'm gonna start off by just showing this slide. These are assignment slides. I will link them down below. Basically it has their objective on the top. It has the noise level I'm expecting and it has everything they're gonna need and then the steps for what to do. I have to change this because we no longer are sitting on the carpet just because there isn't enough room now that I have a few more students and it's just been a little chaotic. So we're switching back to just having their own personal space. So I will remove the cumset on the carpet, but I will have them still put their bins on the floor near their desks because I don't like having the bins on top of the tables. I think it looks messy. I like them having them on the floor next to them. So then I will start with this slide and then I will go on to the next one. Okay, so the next slide is kind of like a science plant unit overview. So I'm just gonna explain to the kiddos the order of which we're gonna be learning about plants and this is really important because they need to understand why we're learning the parts of the plant. It's because we're going to go on to study the plant life cycle. We're gonna talk about how plants get food so the process of photosynthesis and then we are gonna be making a final plant project. So I think it's important to show this to them so that they can understand why we're learning and also have like a vision of what's coming. So that they can make sure to absorb as much information that they'll need for what's coming up. The final plant project looks like this. This is on teachers pay teachers. I will try to link it down below. But basically what this is is like a cumulative assessment. You open it up and it has like multiple parts. So they write facts about flowers and seeds. They talk about how plants make their own food. They explain the job of their roots. They label each part of the plant and write down vocabulary information. They explain photosynthesis. They draw the plant's life cycle. And then on the front you can't really see it but it opens up and explains the job of the leaves. So this is their final plant project and I will show them this today so that they can get really excited. And I'll just explain to them like if you don't know the parts of the plant you're not going to be able to be successful on that final project. So you need to pay close attention and learn as much as you can. So after that slide is shown. Then I will show this slide. This is basically explaining what we're going to do today. So let me just show you. All right. So I'm going to start by having all of us read the introduction portion of this article. And then we're going to actually label the parts of the plant by looking at this picture. We're going to then label our own. And then I'm going to be doing a jigsaw activity. So there are six table groups and each table group has four students. I'm going to give each student at the group a different part of the plant to become an expert on. So then I will split them up into their expert groups which are around the room. This is the roots expert group. This is the leaves. The seeds and flower is over there. And then the stem is here. And on each poster there is a goal. So I want them to be remembering what their objective is for the day. So their objective is to explain the job of each plant. So I made a smaller goal for them. Be able to explain the job of the stem. Be able to explain the job of the roots. Be able to explain the job of the leaves. You get my drift. So then each student will be separated into their expert group. But before that I will just show them quickly how to take notes on their notes page. Basically we'll read the introduction and then I will show them how to fill in their notes and then be able to then explain their part of the plant. Because what they're going to be doing after they're done taking notes on their own personal part of the plant, they're going to be doing a quick check, a quick right to explain the part of the plant's job in writing. So they're going to want to take what's on their notes and then synthesize it into a summary to then explain the part of the plant's job. This is their exit ticket. So they'll complete this. They'll raise their hand. I'll come around and I will stamp them. These are just IKEA stamps. So I will stamp their notebook if they've done it right, if they've done it well, and then that is their wrap up of the lesson. I might invite some students to share. And then the second part of the lesson is once they have taken their notes on their expert part, they will then return to their home groups and teach their classmates about their part of the plant. So that will be a whole nother day. I'm thinking that will probably happen tomorrow. If it does happen today, I will give them really direct instructions. So I will have each teacher have their students read the article, then have them fill in the blanks on their notes. And then I'm also going to provide each teacher with a stack of grabbers to give their students who are being respectful and responsible while they're teaching. So the goal is to have each teammate teach each other about the parts of the plant, the really important parts, so that they can then go on in their final project and explain the job of the leaves, explain the job of the roots, and then of course give some information about the flowers and seeds. You know, it's just going to be a really fun project. So hopefully today fingers crossed, if it all works out the way I've planned it, they will get at least through reading and taking notes on their expert group portion and write their quick write. Once we're done with this, and I've checked them all and they're good, then I will let them go back and start teaching. However, I don't think that we will get to that today because we only have one hour. And I want to give them a little grace, give them a lot of time. And if they're wondering more, I have other texts I can give each group to use to get more information. So that is my observation lesson. It is called a jigsaw. I'm out of breath. I'm really nervous. What I want to do really quickly is I want to read through the blue article and just pick out some words that I think my students might struggle with and provide each team with a little vocab card that explains the meaning of some of those bigger words like nutrients and vitamins and absorb things like that that I'm assuming they're probably not going to know the meaning of just to kind of prevent them from having big questions and struggles throughout the lesson struggle with answering those questions because my biggest thing is I want them to be able to explain the job of each part. So that's what I'm going to be looking for. I'm going to be asking questions. I'm going to be probing them through making sure that they really understand. So one thing I do before an observation is I always get Starbucks because I feel like it just brings me joy and I need all the joy that I can get on a day like today. I'll reflect at the end of the observation so that we can kind of see how it went. I don't have my post observation until next week on Tuesday. So that's kind of a long that's kind of a long wait for me. But I think it'll be fine. Hopefully by then they'll be completely through the teaching process and we'll have started an exit ticket so that I can really see if each kid can explain the job of each part of the plant. So oh here let me show you what that final exit ticket looks like. So after all is said and done all the teaching is over with I will give students one of these and it totally is from the same pack as the article and there's like a coloring portion so they have to highlight and underline and ask them to summarize the job of each part of the plant. So this is like more of a like formal formative assessment rather than like the quick check in their notebook today and the conversations I'm listening for and their teaching. So I'm gonna go and I will do brief with you guys when it's over. Hey you guys so it is now 5 40 p.m. and I'm finally able to sit down and kind of just reflect with you guys and talk about how my observation went. So the lesson itself went really well my kids were perfect the level of engagement was really high even my students who don't necessarily always do all of their work got it done and showed mastery and so I'm really proud of that the lesson was seamless I didn't have really any problems any hiccups and my principal seems like he was very pleased with it he told me good job on his way out um and so I think overall I did really well um so fingers crossed my post my post observation meeting is until next Tuesday so I won't find out like how I scored until next week but I have good feelings I felt really positive at the end and the kids were just amazing so kiddos if you're watching you did a great job today um he was very proud and very impressed by you and um so this just means that I have even higher expectations of them because they can do this and I know they can go up even more so I'm gonna go ahead and end this vlog now because we are cooking and eating dinner hopefully you guys enjoyed this one if you are not already please go ahead and hit the subscribe button like this video and follow me on instagram at apples and tiaras to get more updates and see like daily stuff um yeah so hopefully you guys enjoyed and I'll see you next week bye guys