Nov. 29th

Tuesday Nov. 29th

Today was a little different for my pre-teaching observation, instead of Ms. R when we walked in the classroom there was a sub, which was a surprise to myself and my partner. It was interesting to see how the sub worked with the kids instead of having Ms. R there. It seemed that the sub was less experienced but she asked the children a lot of question to test their knowledge, which I think is very effective. I noticed that the sub used some of the similar techniques that our cooperating teacher uses which worked for her as well. One of the techniques that the sub used was clapping five times and then the kids would repeat and know that they have to be silent, which is a technique that Ms.R uses. With this last observation my 15 hours are complete but I plan on continuing to go if not the remainder of this semester than next semester and in the future. During this class period the last class was working on farm animal drawings using cray pas.

Tuesday Nov. 22nd

Nov. 22nd

Today, in the first class I observed the fifth graders were again working on barn drawings. This consisted of them drawing a barn in pencil and then shading the barn. They were also required to do another barn drawing that they traced with a projector and then colored in with crayon. As I went from table to table I noticed that most kids did struggle with shading; they would either not have a consistent light source or have no shading at all because they thought it was too difficult. So I spent most of my time explaining to them that there needs to be a consistent light source and asked them where they think the lights and dark surfaces will be in their drawing. The second class was working on drawing peacocks and there was one student who I sat down with for the entire class. The reason I sat down by this student was because he was showing signs of hyper activity (constant talking, no ability to sit still and vulgar noises). When I sat down by him I tired to keep him focused on his work but I was not that successful. It was very difficult trying to get him to focus on his work. At times he would be focused but then I would have to remind him to stay focused on his work.

Tuesday Nov. 15th

Lesson Plan 

Yesterday was the day of my lesson, which is designed for second graders. The lesson is an abstract tree drawing that incorporates warm or cool colors (students choice). My cooperating teacher left me in charge of the class only to help out when needed. When I was doing the demonstration for the lesson I felt that I explained things well, I memorized what I wanted to say so when I fumbled around I had to make up things on the fly. I think this was a good choice because It allowed me to be more prepared for the lesson and over time I think it will teach me to improvise on how I want to say things about lessons. It was very different having the entire classes attention focused on me, it was nice to actually be able to teach a lesson to students instead of my peers as I did in an earlier art education class. My cooperating teacher also had the students come to me and ask if they were finished with the first step of the project and if they needed any help they came to me as well. Now that I have taught a lesson in front of a class I feel that the more I do it the easier it will become. In this post I have included processes of the project from beginning to the final piece. I have also posted a video of my teaching. I apologize for the low quality of it but for some reason it was the only way that I could get the video to upload correctly, enjoy!

Tuesday Nov. 8th

Today at O elementary school I observed three classes, the first class was working on barn perspective drawings. These drawing were done in graphite and earlier in the class they drew their barns; now the students were working on shading their drawings and adding any other details. The second class was working on tree drawings with crayon. The students were given construction paper (color of choice) and sparkling crayons (metallic) and then told to make a scene that showed a tree in the foreground and the background. Of the day this was my favorite project to help the students with because earlier in the day I had a chance to create the project myself so it was easier to help students because I already experienced the process. The last class I spent most of the class helping a girl create cartoon faces. I find myself getting more comfortable with the students as I spend more time in the classroom.

Rules

How Do You Define Rules For Your Classroom?

            My cooperating teacher said that a lot of her rules that she implements in her classroom are used throughout the entire school. These rules consist of three general ideas: be safe, be respectful, and be responsible. For discipline in the school my cooperating teacher did give me a form that the school calls major and minor behavior forms, which are used simply for disciplinary means and a way to get the students to follow the rules. Obviously, a major form is when a student does something more serious and a minor for is when a student does something less serious. The form consists of the students name, where the incident occurred, and what the incident was. On the minor form is a checklist of incidents, which include: profanity, tattling, blurting, teasing, non-compliance, lying/ cheating, disruption, and rough play. These forms are used throughout the entire school and are similar to my elementary and middle school forms, but instead we called it  “being written up.” My cooperating teacher also went on to say that for particular projects there are certain rules; for example, if they are creating certain projects that require glue and scissors, do not mix them together. I think that these rules are effective and work for her and I believe that as a teacher you have to find out what works best for you and your students. I think that I will have set rules in my classroom before I start teaching and I will try to think of everything but I am sure that I will have to adjust some of my rules on the fly and add some as well.

Tuesday Nov.1st

Today at O elementary school, the first class that I observed today the students (5th Grade) were working on perspective drawings of barns. The students seemed to grasp the concept for the most part and their drawings were very impressive. The image to the left is a 5th grade student working on their barn drawing. The second class I observed (3rd Grade) was working on drawing trees. Many students struggled with this and asked for help. As I was interacting with the student and offering them help I found it difficult at first to make the students understand the concept, but after working with a couple of students I found that it was effective for me to draw some of the tree drawing and have the student finish what I started. This seemed to work for most of the students, but I did find that some of the students wanted me to draw their entire drawing but I insisted them that to improve they need to work on their artwork themselves.