Well I encountered a few more interesting challenges last week, and for once they didn't come from kindergarten.
My lovely 2nd graders have been in the process of creating snowflake mobiles since just before we left for Christmas break. Last week I had intended to finish the project off by having them tie all their snowflakes to a straw with fishing line. It was, shall we say, terribly optimistic of me to assume this could be done quickly and cleanly in the span of 40 minutes. Not. So. Murphy and I? We're bossom buddies. In either case, I'm going to need another day to wrap things up.
In one of my 1st grade classes, I had a particularly frustrating (and kind of sad) situation crop up. The kiddos are using basic shapes to make robots right now. One of my students wasn't drawing anything, pulling the old "I can't" card. So I do my usual spiel about trying anyway, but still I get vehement (read: sullen) protestations. The kid was adamant that all she could make were letters, which is totally bogus. I suppose there's something about this particular project that is causing major brain blockage, because usually she will jump right in and start drawing stuff.
I tried everything I could think of (with twenty other children vying for my attention, at any rate). I drew an example shape (we focused on a circle). I made a dot-to-dot. I even stooped so low as to guiding her hand for her, hoping she would get a feel for it. I could barely get her to hold the crayon--all she would do is make a "c" and claim that was all she could do--even on the dot to dot. With the guided drawing, she completely relaxed her hand to drop the crayon when we hit the c point. She just STOPPED at near completion, and that was it. Some of her peers tried too, but they weren't any more successful. Maybe I should have tried an "o". Sadly, I didn't think of that until it was too late. Also, I'm hesitant to label it beligerence or a desire to get out of drawing; she's always very enthusiastic.
At the moment, I'm stymied. This week I'll be ready to try again, but...it's frustrating!
Wednesday, January 20, 2010
Tuesday, January 12, 2010
I have been incredibly remiss in regularly updating my reflections these last couple of months! Shame on me.
It always seems that when I feel like there's something to reflect on and blog about, I never have immediate access to my blog. I suppose it shouldn't matter; for example, at the moment of writing this entry, I am using Notepad, to be copy-pasted at a later time. Doesn't seem all that difficult, I know. But somewhere in the grand scope of things, it just didn't occur to me to do it, or it became an excuse not to write. In short, I've been lazy.
But my New Year's resolution is to STOP--being lazy, that is.
The week following the holidays was quite slow and easy; the kids (all but one class) had earned free days for the 9 week period, so every class got to have free time while I kicked back and putzed around at my desk. Not exactly the most stellar method of getting back into the swing of things. It is now our second week back, and I have managed to kick some of the laziness in the butt. I have some great lessons with my kids--unfortunately, I still end up dragging because I'm just not getting enough sleep. Going to bed in a timely manner is perhaps my most difficult challenge! But I've got to do it.
This week, my kids are doing the following:
K - Non-objective dot pictures. They have a lot of fun with it, and it kind of builds on the book we read before the holidays (the Dot). Today I even had a couple kinders who used the term as an answer to a question (correctly, if you don't count actually saying the word right), and I was thrilled to death! I have no idea what I'm going to do with my 2-day a week kindergartners, but I have until Friday to figure it out.
1 - These guys are making ROBOTS. They love robots, so dropping names like R2D2 and Optimus Prime or Bumblebee gets them all sorts of excited. What this lesson involves is looking at a print of a robot sculpture I have (it is made from things like retro TVs--very cool) and identifying basic shapes therein. Then we talk about how robots can look any way they want, not just humanoid, or rather "people-shaped", and how shapes could be put together in fun ways to make a robot. Yesterday was the guinea pig class, and they got it, but there was a distinct lack of imagination and a lot more "copy completely or partially the teacher's example and the picture on the board and the stuff in Transformers". I was a little disappointed, but it went okay. Today though? They blew my mind. I did a demo on the board (and erased afterwords) and we talked about thinking. In otherwords, think about what your robot looks like. Can it fly? Does it have arms? A head or face? Wheels? Absolutely NO copying something they've seen before. They had some incredibly detailed and imaginative robots at the end of class, and I can't wait to take these pre-sketches and make some awesome robots next week.
2 - Now, the second graders are probably completly exhasperated with me as we still have to finish the snowflake mobiles we started before the break. Right now they are more snowflake and less mobile. But we'll be finishing them up this week, and I will hang them from the ceiling (where they will likely remain right up until Spring Break, lol).k
3 - Third grade is currently in the midst of my "baby", that is, the unit I created as an assignment during my student teaching. They are into the third and final project of the unit, the Laurel Burch project. This week, we looked at and discussed some of the artist's work and discussed how she used color, line and pattern to convey emotion to the viewer. We talked about themes, in this case friendship, and did a brainstorming worksheet. On this worksheet, we all brainstormed 8 friendship action words like play and hug. Then the kids had to assign each word an emotion and each emotion a corresponding color, line, and pattern. Not everyone finished, but that will be for next week. The backside of the worksheet contains two areas for pre-sketches, which they will be required to complete before they can start the drawing on their 12x18 paper.
In other news, the Challengers are once again challenging me--go figure.
My classes with them have not been as incredibly frustrating as they were before (this may be due to a return to a more, shall we say, hard-nosed approach wherein I give out sad faces and sad notes at the drop of a hat), but nonetheless, they frustrate me. I don't know what it is about my kids, this class in particular, that makes me lose it and be all raised voice grrr. But I do. Today I had to kick out a child in my class--twice, no less--and it was the same one who got removed to the office for dumping 2/3 of my table supplies on the floor and throwing markers. I started the class by dropping him outside the office as we passed because he was doing his usual messing with the other kids acting up thing and told him to come to class when he felt ready. He came back about halfway through and got to work. Had one marker thrown, but otherwise okay.
Then he started acting up more, so he along with some others ended up with a sad face. then he got a sad note and began to throw a small fit that included the shoving of my marker bin across the table. Where it not for the presence of other kids around the table, it probably would have ended up on the floor. this was about five minutes to the end of class, but I sent him to the office anyway to sit outside. he dragged feet all the way to the end of the cafeteria (so of course now I'm having to shout across the caf at him) and basically doing everything he can to not actually leave. An aid happened to be going that way, and she had to walk him out.
Okay, so now I've got to settle the rest of the class (who always take any opportunity to chatter that they can) and get them lined up and back to their home room. Goes just fine. After this, I sat and talked with my little trouble-maker. It didn't do much good, as he really couldn't get past the stage of crying and protesting that he didn't "want a sad note!" I explained why he was getting one, but I'm not sure he actually payed any attention. He really just didn't want one, and I don't think this particular kiddo really got why what he did was against the rules.
He is honestly my most challenging student as far as behavior goes. And I know that I'm not handling it correctly. Problem is, it's proving to be incredibly difficult to change how I behave when confronted with his misbehaviors. Part of the problem is that the whole class is kind of wild, so taking the time to deal with one student seems to give them cart blanche to go wild. But really, I just need to stop and breathe. I need to THINK before I react. Gah. Back to the drawing board.
It always seems that when I feel like there's something to reflect on and blog about, I never have immediate access to my blog. I suppose it shouldn't matter; for example, at the moment of writing this entry, I am using Notepad, to be copy-pasted at a later time. Doesn't seem all that difficult, I know. But somewhere in the grand scope of things, it just didn't occur to me to do it, or it became an excuse not to write. In short, I've been lazy.
But my New Year's resolution is to STOP--being lazy, that is.
The week following the holidays was quite slow and easy; the kids (all but one class) had earned free days for the 9 week period, so every class got to have free time while I kicked back and putzed around at my desk. Not exactly the most stellar method of getting back into the swing of things. It is now our second week back, and I have managed to kick some of the laziness in the butt. I have some great lessons with my kids--unfortunately, I still end up dragging because I'm just not getting enough sleep. Going to bed in a timely manner is perhaps my most difficult challenge! But I've got to do it.
This week, my kids are doing the following:
K - Non-objective dot pictures. They have a lot of fun with it, and it kind of builds on the book we read before the holidays (the Dot). Today I even had a couple kinders who used the term as an answer to a question (correctly, if you don't count actually saying the word right), and I was thrilled to death! I have no idea what I'm going to do with my 2-day a week kindergartners, but I have until Friday to figure it out.
1 - These guys are making ROBOTS. They love robots, so dropping names like R2D2 and Optimus Prime or Bumblebee gets them all sorts of excited. What this lesson involves is looking at a print of a robot sculpture I have (it is made from things like retro TVs--very cool) and identifying basic shapes therein. Then we talk about how robots can look any way they want, not just humanoid, or rather "people-shaped", and how shapes could be put together in fun ways to make a robot. Yesterday was the guinea pig class, and they got it, but there was a distinct lack of imagination and a lot more "copy completely or partially the teacher's example and the picture on the board and the stuff in Transformers". I was a little disappointed, but it went okay. Today though? They blew my mind. I did a demo on the board (and erased afterwords) and we talked about thinking. In otherwords, think about what your robot looks like. Can it fly? Does it have arms? A head or face? Wheels? Absolutely NO copying something they've seen before. They had some incredibly detailed and imaginative robots at the end of class, and I can't wait to take these pre-sketches and make some awesome robots next week.
2 - Now, the second graders are probably completly exhasperated with me as we still have to finish the snowflake mobiles we started before the break. Right now they are more snowflake and less mobile. But we'll be finishing them up this week, and I will hang them from the ceiling (where they will likely remain right up until Spring Break, lol).k
3 - Third grade is currently in the midst of my "baby", that is, the unit I created as an assignment during my student teaching. They are into the third and final project of the unit, the Laurel Burch project. This week, we looked at and discussed some of the artist's work and discussed how she used color, line and pattern to convey emotion to the viewer. We talked about themes, in this case friendship, and did a brainstorming worksheet. On this worksheet, we all brainstormed 8 friendship action words like play and hug. Then the kids had to assign each word an emotion and each emotion a corresponding color, line, and pattern. Not everyone finished, but that will be for next week. The backside of the worksheet contains two areas for pre-sketches, which they will be required to complete before they can start the drawing on their 12x18 paper.
In other news, the Challengers are once again challenging me--go figure.
My classes with them have not been as incredibly frustrating as they were before (this may be due to a return to a more, shall we say, hard-nosed approach wherein I give out sad faces and sad notes at the drop of a hat), but nonetheless, they frustrate me. I don't know what it is about my kids, this class in particular, that makes me lose it and be all raised voice grrr. But I do. Today I had to kick out a child in my class--twice, no less--and it was the same one who got removed to the office for dumping 2/3 of my table supplies on the floor and throwing markers. I started the class by dropping him outside the office as we passed because he was doing his usual messing with the other kids acting up thing and told him to come to class when he felt ready. He came back about halfway through and got to work. Had one marker thrown, but otherwise okay.
Then he started acting up more, so he along with some others ended up with a sad face. then he got a sad note and began to throw a small fit that included the shoving of my marker bin across the table. Where it not for the presence of other kids around the table, it probably would have ended up on the floor. this was about five minutes to the end of class, but I sent him to the office anyway to sit outside. he dragged feet all the way to the end of the cafeteria (so of course now I'm having to shout across the caf at him) and basically doing everything he can to not actually leave. An aid happened to be going that way, and she had to walk him out.
Okay, so now I've got to settle the rest of the class (who always take any opportunity to chatter that they can) and get them lined up and back to their home room. Goes just fine. After this, I sat and talked with my little trouble-maker. It didn't do much good, as he really couldn't get past the stage of crying and protesting that he didn't "want a sad note!" I explained why he was getting one, but I'm not sure he actually payed any attention. He really just didn't want one, and I don't think this particular kiddo really got why what he did was against the rules.
He is honestly my most challenging student as far as behavior goes. And I know that I'm not handling it correctly. Problem is, it's proving to be incredibly difficult to change how I behave when confronted with his misbehaviors. Part of the problem is that the whole class is kind of wild, so taking the time to deal with one student seems to give them cart blanche to go wild. But really, I just need to stop and breathe. I need to THINK before I react. Gah. Back to the drawing board.
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