Tuesday, May 5, 2015

Weekly reflections

Tyler- Tyler did a wonderful job, especially for being the first teacher. He definitely made sure to reinforce his concept throughout the day, only mistake that was noticeable was the fact that purple turned out more black in the cup.

Marge- Class got a bit wild, but that may have largely been due purely to the noise level reached by the project. The lesson was again about color mixing and ways to show that to the kids, they had boxes that they placed paper into and rolled paint covered marbles over the paper, watching the colors show up and mix, though they sometimes had to be reminded of the "lesson" by asking what colors were made. Kids got very excited to see the colors as they mixed on the paper, but that enthusiasm got carried away at times, leaving completely paint-soaked papers, but that's just the nature of kids at this age. However, it reinforced the previous week's learning in a fun memorable way, with some tweaking I think that this is could be a well established project in schools, it's a good time, engages the students, but really does reinforce color mixing if wrapped up correctly. What I mean by "wrapped up correctly" is that if at the end, or the next week when the paintings are dry, you have the kids identify where colors are on the pages they made, and then what colors mixed to make it, or something like that.

Whitney- The last in the color lessons, she taught the kids an emotional connection to each color, and had them write a story about each. One issue is that when you put sad and mad against each other they often become muddled. "I was mad because my mom wouldn't let me have ice cream," "I was sad because my mom wouldn't let me have my toy," etc.

Allison- I think the day was really well handled, especially given that we had, what? About 7 extra kids? She made extra kits, and thought fast when she needed one more. I really liked that she introduced some history first, and then had step by step instructions planned out. I especially liked her planning in the packets. Great job. I am a little on the fence about what the overall lesson was, but I think that's just a kink that needed working out.

Gina- Gina did a great job with the kids. She did a basic coloring project, but incorporated vocabulary and reinforced "symmetry" throughout her lesson. Only issue would have been that the two pictures were not of equal difficulty, one was a butterfly that was further separated between colors, but with the flower all of the colors connected.

Erica- The sock puppet idea was great, it allowed the kids something to play with after they left the school and opened a good dialogue about what the students had to say. I liked at the end she had students talk about their work, there were some issues but the idea behind it was great.

Jazzy- Teaching on final day!