Day 6 in the classroom and 2nd day of teaching.

In the ceramics classroom the students were creating sushi platters. Since I am coming in on the second day of this project it seemed like several of them had at least one that was started. They need to have 3 by the end.  Since there were many that did not even have 1 started though my cooperating teacher gave bonus points out to those that did as an incentive.  This seemed to light a fire for other students that they should probably get to work as well.  Walking around I was able to ask students what their plans were for the 3 platters. Most of them wanted to have them look similar and match. I could also see what students really enjoyed the project as they took their time to make it look neat. The other students just slapped things together to get done quickly.

In the 5^th grade they started to do some exercises that would prepare them for their still life project.  In today’s class they were learning about high lights and shadows as well as how to make something 3 dimensional. Given I have not worked with the 5^th grade for a while it really amazed me to see how challenging this was for them.  I thought it was a really good thing I was there because this allowed me to walk around and help the students that were really struggling, while the teacher continued to give examples on the board.  By the end of the class the students were starting to get it a little more but this was truly a challenge for each of them.

Honestly today I probably should not have gone to the school.  I had a cold that was leaving me extremely run down.  I knew that I needed to come because it was up to me to finish my lesson with the 6^th grade. This however proved to be a challenge due to how I was feeling.  I was already a little on the edge with teaching about plaster as this was the first time I had done so. I also knew we only had just a little bit of time to do this so I made sure to write the instructions on the board too. 

The biggest thing that I would change about today though is really making sure that I give all the directions right away, especially when you are sick and your voice is soft. I decided to split the directions in half and I shouldn’t have. So things started to not go as I wanted. Overall though I think I got really flustered today and even though it worked ok and each kid will have a mask I just really need to do plaster a whole new way next time.  That means giving ALL directions at the beginning and making sure that things are clear for them. So clarify if they have questions. Today wasn’t a complete fail but I think next time I will be better prepared.