REFLECTION ON UNDERWATER ADVENTURE LESSON
On Saturday morning, I had my first lead teaching experience. First, I have to say WOW! It was both an amazing and frightening experience. Amazing because I think the kids really enjoyed themselves and got something out of the lesson, scary because I don’t know how I’m going to do that with 30 kids in the classroom instead of 10. After a two-week break, these kids were ready to create.
The morning started out very well, the kids came into the room and were very
excited about all the materials they found on the tables. They listened to
me and were asking questions, it was great. They were really excited about
he idea of mixed media and liked to experiment with the materials.
I started by splitting the kids into two groups; the first group was using
the fish I had projected on the wall to make some rough outlines on their
paper. I limited the kids to 2 to 3 fish, so they would have time to finish.
The kids really liked this part, they enjoyed picking their fish and thinking
about placement on their posters. They were very thoughtful through the process,
and it was very nice to see them take time to think about the finished product.
The second group started out by painting their ocean floor with our paint
and sand mixture. This gave the kids a good example of texture, and they really
enjoyed this part too. After they were done they would go and draw in their
fish, and the kids drawing the fish came over to the sand table. The timing
worked out perfectly, and the kids never had to wait to long. After they were
done with those two steps, some kids chose to sponge in their background,
while others went to work creating their fish.
While they were working, I did have a problem of kids using the materials
to make things unrelated to the project. I had some kids taking the pipe cleaners
and beads and making bracelets and necklaces. I did stop the behavior, but
it took a couple times of asking them to stop and eventually taking the bowl
of beads away. I was very frustrated with this because after talking to Susan
and Michelle after the class, they also asked them to stop a couple times.
I feel like some of these kids are never told no, and have no boundaries whatsoever.
The next thing I needed to worry about was what to do when some kids finished
and others were still working. I really did not want to force the kids to
stop, but it got to be 10:30 and we had to so we could make the other fish.
Again some of the kids would just not listen, I gave them the option of drawing
in their sketchbooks, reading one of the many books we brought in for them
to look at, or creating more fish on a separate piece of paper. I though that
these were all reasonable activities for them to be doing, but some of them
of course wanted to push the limits again and either said no to everything,
or just wouldn’t sit down. Eventually the few kids that were no behaving
calmed down, and found an activity to do. I don’t think that this would
be a problem in a typical classroom, because this lesson probably would have
been broken down into three class periods, so hopefully, there wouldn’t
be such a long time period that kids would be waiting.
All and all I think that this project went well. Some of our kids that normally
don’t spend a lot of time working on things really concentrated and
created some of the most interesting pieces. The kids came up with so many
creative things to do on their mini murals that I was amazed. It was nice
to let them have almost and hour and fifteen minutes to work on these, because
I know they probably do not get that long in school. I think that this lesson
could be spaced out over days, but I liked the fact that most of them had
all the time they needed to finish. I know the transition was my stumbling
point, because I thought I had enough for them to do, but it wasn’t
enough to keep them all interested in the subject. I learned a lot from this
project.
After we were done with that part of the lesson, we moved on to create what
I like to call our CD fish. The kids loved these and were very excited about
using CD’s in a project. They asked many questions and also worked hard
to make these. I was a little disappointed that we ran out of time and were
not able to tell stories with their fish in front of their murals, but by
the time they all finished we only had like five minuets left, so we had the
movie on and gave them some colored goldfish crackers. This actually winded
them down. They enjoyed the snack, because they all are pretty hungry by the
time class is over.
The parents reaction was also interesting. They came in and could not believe
that we could get that much done in two hours. The kids showed their parents
how they made their murals and fish, and were very excited when they left.
I also heard from some parents how much their kids missed coming the last
two weeks, which I obviously glad to hear that they had fun and liked coming
to class. As she left, Grace made the comment to me that she was so glad she
came for this class, which made me feel really good about the lesson.
I think that this is a lesson that I would use in the future, the kids loved
it, and they were so creative with decorating their murals and fish. In the
examples I made, I left them pretty plain so that the kids would hopefully
just keep expanding on what I was showing them. I was glad to see that they
all just did not copy my examples, but did so much more.
This lesson taught me a lot about myself as a teacher. I learned so many lessons
as I described above, and really enjoyed helping the kids create these pieces.
I loved being their guide to the creative and learning process. It was another
step assuring me of my decision of becoming a teacher.