Today felt like Monday, and I am totally exhausted. There is every possibility this post will make little to no sense in places. Hopefully I am awake enough to avoid that. : p
So yes, I am doing a lesson on Where the Wild Things Are. And such a funny coincidence that I started just when the movie came out (which I still totally want to go see). The lesson was recommended to me by my mentor teacher from Internship, and I'm doing it with the kindergartners right now.
It's quite a lot of fun. Except for that class that got banned from painting FOR THE REST OF THE YEAR because they were so completely out of control. I'm talking about a child covered from head to toe in paint, paint on the floor, paint on the wall, the tables (and not the top) and chairs. Paint. Everywhere. Egad.
But I digress.
So, lots of fun. Today I had a pretty hyper class, so I did something different. We were reading the story, they were fidgeting badly. When it got to the part were the "rumpus" occurs, I suddenly decided that we would rumpus too. After I showed them the pictures, I told them to line up behind me, and we marched down the stairs into the cafeteria and had our own wild rumpus around the room.
It was very fun and the kids loved it. It also had the pleasant side effect of settling them down, especially when I told them that if they made good choices and worked hard, we'd do it one more time before they went back to their homeroom. And the walk back to class was spectacular! These kids are pretty noisy in the hall, but today? Total angels. Awesome, and a great way to end the day (not counting bus duty of course). Now I'm wishing I'd thought of it earlier so that all my classes could enjoy it. There's next year, I suppose.
On another note, I totally feel like I'm getting back into the groove of lesson planning. When I sit down and really think about a good, involved project, I plan in units. After all, I have to have lessons building up to that great project I want to do! I can happily lay this revitalization at my fellow art teacher's feet, as she was the one who prompted me about my planning process, and because yesterday was an in-service day, I had plenty of time to get my brain jump started and plan.
I started with 3rd grade, as they needed a new lesson for next week. Somehow, my brain got caught on abstract art, and now I have a whole unit (comprised of 4-5 projects) all mapped out and am extremely pleased. All I have to do now is flesh out each individual lesson. I'll say more about the actual lessons after I've worked on them more.
I decided to precede the unit with my much smaller Laurel Burch unit to give the kids an introduction to some of the concepts the abstract unit will cover, like communication through line and color (hopefully I will not be lazy and upload the lesson plans this weekend). Since the LB unit will take about 5-6 weeks (I've got them for 40 minutes a week), I'll have plenty of time to work on the new unit. I'm excited and raring to go on it and the other grade levels!
Thursday, October 29, 2009
Thursday, October 1, 2009
Homework Lasts Forever
Wow. It’s the seventh week of school already, and while I have settled into something of a routine, I still feel like a rank amateur. I’m sure I will for some time to come. As the days fly by, I have, however, come to realize that yes, I do love this job. (Despite the difficulties with certain classes, there are many more enjoyable moments.) We’ll see if this attitude holds for the rest of the school year.
These last few weeks, I haven’t been reflecting through writing as much as I should have been, but I have been thinking things over a lot. I’ve gotten at least a few areas of improvement pinned down (and fodder for the Professional Development Plan we’ll be required to hand in soon), especially in the area of lesson planning and classroom management.
Back when I was in college (as though that was so much longer than half a year ago) I was accustomed to a heavy workload. I took 17-18 hours a semester, spending my days and evenings working on papers and in the studio and studying for tests. I also was working to keep my academic scholarship, so good grades were doubly important. Now that I’m no longer in school, things are a little different.
It seems that there is a place in your brain that says around this time of year, “Shouldn’t I be turning in something? Do I have a test coming up?” For a while, your mind is stuck in the habit of being a student, hard to break after so many years. But there is a larger part that says, “Woo-hoo! No more school for the REST OF MY LIFE!” It is exultant. And there is something about that which makes you want to become utterly lazy. I don’t even have to create those monster lesson plans that we all have to use for our education courses, much less write up a detailed and thoughtful reflection – all of which were graded.
That’s not to say that I’m not putting any effort into my duties as a teacher—I am. But I could be working more efficiently, putting more thought into the week’s lessons. I utilize a great deal of lesson plans from other teachers. A few are my own, and I don’t expect that to change over night. As I learned during my student teaching, creating a meaningful and successful lesson plan or unit takes a lot of time and effort. I don’t have time to create one for every class all at once. It has to be gradual.
But when I am creating a lesson, or pulling ideas and giving them flesh, I still need to sit down and really plan out how it’s going to work. What are we going to talk about? What skill will we learn? In what order should things be presented?
It’s like I am flying by the seat of my pants.
It’s really hit home this week. My third graders started still lifes this week. I’ve never actually done still lifes with elementary kids before—or anyone for that matter. But I thought, “Hey, how hard can it be? I did them all the time when I was a student!” The problem is that I underestimated a third grader’s capacity for sheer bullheadedness. They ask you why and what the point is. They complain about their inability to draw whatever objects you have laid out. I didn’t take into consideration that they need to really build up to something like this. Drawing real objects can be tough for an adult artist, much less a child who may be still gaining control of their fine motor skills.
Thankfully, I can learn from my “guinea pig” classes. For the next class, instead of jumping right into the actual still life, we did exercises to help ease them into it. I also changed the objects being used. Because it’s fall, and I was at Wal-Mart anyhow, I picked up two of those cute mini pumpkins you see, a regular orange one and a white and orange striped one for variety. Their shapes are fairly easy to see and draw: an oval and a circle, ignoring the stems. Hopefully, this will bring the project down to a level that is easier to succeed at for my students, all without sacrificing the skills and ideas I am trying to teach them.
But again, this just hammers in that I really need to focus on planning better. I need to go step by step and consider, “Will this work?” I even need to plan out what I’m going to say—to a point. In other words, I need to pretend like I’m still in college, and these lesson plans are for a grade.
In a way, they are--intangibly. I’m being graded every time one of my students succeeds or fails, and I’m being graded on whether or not I did everything I could to help them succeed. If I haven’t, I’m already failing.
These last few weeks, I haven’t been reflecting through writing as much as I should have been, but I have been thinking things over a lot. I’ve gotten at least a few areas of improvement pinned down (and fodder for the Professional Development Plan we’ll be required to hand in soon), especially in the area of lesson planning and classroom management.
Back when I was in college (as though that was so much longer than half a year ago) I was accustomed to a heavy workload. I took 17-18 hours a semester, spending my days and evenings working on papers and in the studio and studying for tests. I also was working to keep my academic scholarship, so good grades were doubly important. Now that I’m no longer in school, things are a little different.
It seems that there is a place in your brain that says around this time of year, “Shouldn’t I be turning in something? Do I have a test coming up?” For a while, your mind is stuck in the habit of being a student, hard to break after so many years. But there is a larger part that says, “Woo-hoo! No more school for the REST OF MY LIFE!” It is exultant. And there is something about that which makes you want to become utterly lazy. I don’t even have to create those monster lesson plans that we all have to use for our education courses, much less write up a detailed and thoughtful reflection – all of which were graded.
That’s not to say that I’m not putting any effort into my duties as a teacher—I am. But I could be working more efficiently, putting more thought into the week’s lessons. I utilize a great deal of lesson plans from other teachers. A few are my own, and I don’t expect that to change over night. As I learned during my student teaching, creating a meaningful and successful lesson plan or unit takes a lot of time and effort. I don’t have time to create one for every class all at once. It has to be gradual.
But when I am creating a lesson, or pulling ideas and giving them flesh, I still need to sit down and really plan out how it’s going to work. What are we going to talk about? What skill will we learn? In what order should things be presented?
It’s like I am flying by the seat of my pants.
It’s really hit home this week. My third graders started still lifes this week. I’ve never actually done still lifes with elementary kids before—or anyone for that matter. But I thought, “Hey, how hard can it be? I did them all the time when I was a student!” The problem is that I underestimated a third grader’s capacity for sheer bullheadedness. They ask you why and what the point is. They complain about their inability to draw whatever objects you have laid out. I didn’t take into consideration that they need to really build up to something like this. Drawing real objects can be tough for an adult artist, much less a child who may be still gaining control of their fine motor skills.
Thankfully, I can learn from my “guinea pig” classes. For the next class, instead of jumping right into the actual still life, we did exercises to help ease them into it. I also changed the objects being used. Because it’s fall, and I was at Wal-Mart anyhow, I picked up two of those cute mini pumpkins you see, a regular orange one and a white and orange striped one for variety. Their shapes are fairly easy to see and draw: an oval and a circle, ignoring the stems. Hopefully, this will bring the project down to a level that is easier to succeed at for my students, all without sacrificing the skills and ideas I am trying to teach them.
But again, this just hammers in that I really need to focus on planning better. I need to go step by step and consider, “Will this work?” I even need to plan out what I’m going to say—to a point. In other words, I need to pretend like I’m still in college, and these lesson plans are for a grade.
In a way, they are--intangibly. I’m being graded every time one of my students succeeds or fails, and I’m being graded on whether or not I did everything I could to help them succeed. If I haven’t, I’m already failing.
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