Teacher: Isabel Fernandez
Friday, October 22nd, 2021 at Johnson Elementary
This was my first time in a classroom by myself in a while so I definitely felt the nerves, though as soon as I started teaching that quickly went away. Actually, at the end of the class I reflected that I was very grateful to get to teach on my own again because that dynamic is so different, yet rewarding. Plus, I enjoy reflecting on "I" rather than "we".
I started the lesson with a get to know you exercise so that the students could begin to feel comfortable with me and respect me enough to listen to me. Then we watched a YouTube video of a reading of The Legend of Spookley the Square Pumpkin an discussed culture and identity a bit. After that we talked about how certain lines and colors make us feel. And finally, the students created their own personal pumpkins that were later placed together on the floor to create a class/culture Pumpkin Patch.
What went well:
This lesson overall was a great way to go about assessing my students knowledge on culture and identity.
Based on our discussion about our personality traits, I was able to tell that students were pretty well versed in talking about their identities but often got caught on the idea of things they like.
When talking about the meaning behind creating a pumpkin patch, it seemed the strongest area for this group was actually understanding the idea of culture and identity within cultures.
The final pumpkins that the students created all seemed to almost reach abstract but not quite through the use of line shape and color that we talked about together. Therefore, the plan of pushing abstraction further through the use of a worksheet in the next lesson will be quite useful and probably beneficial for student success in the final collaborative piece on day three.
I was proud of the engagement I was able to get from this group of kids, I think that the beginning where we all took turns talking about ourselves was integral to this success. The students seemed to for a bond with me and so the could respect when I asked for there attention or needed something from them whether that be an answer about their artwork or participating in discussion. Classroom management involved "class-class", "can everyone find my eyes?" and the classic clapping technique. All in which was successful.
What did not go as planned / Needs work:
I did not plan for how open and engaged this class would be. I didn't really follow my schedule as planned and spent some more time discussing with the class because they all had such great things to share. The time in the end worked out, but I'm not super convinced everyone got the chance to finish their pumpkins.
I think that walking around and talking individually was super important for this group's success, therefore, I hope that I can be even more vigilant about hitting every student, this was reflected in the end when I could tell you about most of my kids piece and choices minus a good chunk. I want to be able to know about them all. This is super viable by walking around but, in the future I could even have them jot down their reasons from lines, shape, and color.
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