New Science Teacher

Science is the one subject I've never taught as an elementary school teacher. I remember Dr. Shmuckler at Temple teaching the science methods course. I remember my elementary science class with Mrs. LaComp, then with Mrs. Williams at another school, followed by Mrs. Johnson, Mr. Oxley, Mr. Mealy(sp), Ms. Lewis, Mr. Finley, Mr. Ulrich, and Mr. Belz....yes, I was a teacher-geek even then remembering most of my teachers...lol.

This year is my first year teaching science however. Since I was getting a new grade to teach, I figured I might was well dust off my science pedagogy from undergrad and take a stab at science.

All summer long I was apprehensive. I am an English/Language Arts teacher at heart and am currently in a program to be a certified reading specialist. If I was going to do this "science thing", I wanted to be all in, providing the best instruction and experience I could! So I read articles, blogs, tweets and the like all summer. I visited the websites of national science organizations, notable television programs and people, etc. to prepare for my three classes of 5th graders.

I just want to report, that while I have a ways to go both content-wise and pedagogically speaking, I'm starting to get the hang of it and am enjoying it. I teach with the premise that science should be experiential in nature; the premise for my ELA and Social Studies teaching. Note: I'm also teaching Social Studies this year, a subject I've taught quite a few times before and with which I am much more comfortable.

I want my English back for sure, but at least I know that if I go self-contained in perhaps a younger grade, I could do it.