Bean Plant Observation

At 9:15am the students finished circle time and were sitting in their seats waiting for their snack to be served. As the assistant was giving lunch boxes to the students the teacher told the class about an experiment they were going to do. She told them they were going to stop sunlight from reaching their bean plant and that the class was going to predict what will happen to the bean plant. While the teacher was talking most of the students were not paying attention they were playing with their lunchboxes and talking to their classmates. Then the teacher began calling on students at each table and asking them what they predicted would happen to the plant without sun for three weeks. Most of the students followed what the other student had said

Once all the students sat at the table the teacher scattered cut out pictures of flowers, each had a number ranging from one to nine. The teacher told each student what number to pick. Once every student had a number she told them to put the same number of sunflower seed on the flower. The students then had to count the sunflower seeds. One students continuously counted incorrectly until the teacher stepped in to help. After she told them each another number to choose, and place pumpkin seeds on them this time. A student that had counted correctly previously was given the number zero and the student who counted incorrectly was given the number nine. So not surprising the student needed help counting the seeds again. Next, the teacher instructed each student to take a way a given number and recount their seeds. This time three of the students needed help either taking away, counting or both. The next group of four students goes to the table and they count and away correctly; no student needed help. The teacher then told me she purposely chose those groups of children because she knows their abilities. She didn’t want to make any student feel like they are not as smart as their