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It's pretty normal to be nervous no matter the age group. I taught 2nd grade for quite a while and the biggest thing with that age group is to let them know what to expect. Make sure they know that you will be using the same rules the regular teacher set in place and you have the same behavioral expectations. They all want to help. Make sure you have jobs thought out in advance of doing an activity or experiment. Always keep in mind "worse case" scenario in regards to safety. I make sure, even with older students, to let them know that SAFETY is #1. If something breaks or spills, I won't be upset with them because I want them to let me know so we can all be safe! If we are working with small parts, say Legos, we practice before I hand out materials. I pretend to drop a Lego and have everyone freeze, hands up, Lego down. We find the dropped Lego and then we can resume our activity. Again, we practice this before we start the activity.
This group needs a lot of hands on experiences with the same topic in order to gain an understanding of the content. Use some kind of phenomenon to engage them from the start and they will adore you. Make sure that whatever activity or experiment you are having them do is directly related to your objective and use formative assessment throughout the lesson so that you can know during the lesson if there are misconceptions or misunderstandings.
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