The Second Great Lesson- The Coming of Life

Today, I overcame anxiety from teaching a lesson that used to freak me out from just thinking about it, that I only presented it to my oldest child a long time ago- The Second Great Lesson; The Coming of Life where I go through how life started on earth till the coming of humans.

I used to surender at the thought of learning the timeline, eras, periods, different life forms, etc, etc, that I just buried my head in my pillow and tried to not think of it.

While it is supposed to be impressionistic and build awe and curiosity in the child that will hopefully inject enthusiasm into learning more on his own, it is still a stretch for me because I have always had this belief that I cannot do Science.

From reading the lesson script over and over again, I realise how important it is to glean the right facts and present in a manner that appeals to the children that they become enthusiastic learners instead of bogging them down with information.

(I am really sorry children if I was a bit raw in my presentation, but insyaAllah, teacher is learning with you and pray I will be better at it with each lesson. Thank you for being enthusiastic (and forgiving) students.)

Again, my trusted Great Lessons companion is
Miss Barbara and I referred to the timeline and script from Moteaco. The latter mentioned something along the line that dinosaurs have two brains but this old theory has been refuted as seen in Dino Brain Myth.

I made my own version of the timeline by hand as my printer could only print in A4, using the paper roll from Ikea. To me, in a few A4 sheets, the pictures would be too small for the children as I told the story and would limit mat extension activities.

As we talked about bacteria in the story, I had prepared bacteria culture for the children, but they were not ready yet by the time they came. I learned how to make them from Mad About Science.

After the heavy presentation and snack, We played dinosaur cards from Pinay Homeschooler. We played the cards like in Happy Family where you have to get matching pairs from the person next to you. My aim was more for the kids to play with pronouncing the dinosaur names.

For the last part of the lesson, we did a dinosaur extension exercise based on the cards from the same website.