Dinosaur Introduction :)

      I'm not a blogger...I guess that's kind of ironic since I'm writing a blog. I'm not a writer of any kind, though I thought myself to be one at one point. I don't go openly expressing my feelings to random strangers (I usually do that frequently with my friends and/or my mother). I'm an average 20 year old going to college, studying to be a teacher. Geez, that's a phrase I never thought I'd say. I came into college wanting to major in Creative Writing and write a novel and be the next J.K. Rowling (as my dad put it). The next thing you know, life throws you a few unexpected (or impending) curve balls and you find that you need to rethink your future.
      The idea of teaching used to terrify me for a few reasons. One, I hate public speaking. Two, I'm scared children don't like me. Three...well, that's pretty much it. Looking at this, my reasons for not wanting to teach look so silly. I guess that's what drove me to want to see what teaching was all about. I've known that with whatever career path you go down, you will have to public speak at some point. You can avoid it in high school but not the real world. With children, I kept forgetting that they're people, not aliens from another planet.
      So, this brings me to now: several days away from presenting (not teaching) my first differentiated lesson plan to my class on Special Education practice. I decided to do mine on dinosaurs after deciding against the Solar System. I'm actually finding that it's going quite nicely. I feel pretty confidant that I've made a lesson that will benefit all my students if I ever actually go through with the lesson. I decided to make three stations: one with books to read, one with a short video, and one that requires the students to look for footprints and match them with the dinosaur who made them. In order to assess if they learned anything, I'll give them several homework options: draw or write about a dinosaur you created, find several facts about a dinosaur that interested you, or write a story about your dinosaur. Like I said before, I'm not actually teaching this lesson; I'm just explaining this lesson in a poster session. Who knows, maybe I could use it later on :)