Day #6

So today was my 6th day.  It's been about 1 1/2 weeks since I last visited the school.  I've really missed it and I'm glad to be back.  Today was a fun filled day of helping kids put together a piece for their portfolio, making paper crocodiles, and joining in on an art class.  It was a good day but the kids were quite hyper and for all of us (teachers and myself) this has been an extremely long week, which didn't work out too well.  However, we were able to get through the day successfully.
Today my Cooperating Teacher (CT) asked me to help the kids put together a piece for their portfolios.  The students were given three pictures of them making ChocoCrispies and were asked to glue it on a sheet of paper and decorate and create their own borders as well as write a few words about what they were doing.  It went quite well however, some kids were being very silly and it took them a while to finish the activity, which was a problem.  This is because I pulled a few students at a time while they were doing a different activity.  It was really nice because I was able to see how some students were more creative in terms of art and how they represent themselves.  It's really nice that the students are assessed based on a portfolio of works throughout the year instead of having actual written exams, which are becoming more and more common in the American school system.
Today I also helped the students in making paper crocodiles which was really fun.  the students were given verbal direction on how to complete the crocodile and were also given a demonstration as well.  It was interesting to see the different motor skills that the students had in using scissors.  Some students cut the crocodile out really neatly and folded really neatly, while others had trouble cutting along the lines or had problems following directions.  One student in particular had a lot of problems following directions and understanding how he was supposed to make the crocodile.  The students were asked to fold the paper along the line and cut along the lines of the crocodile.  However, this one student cut along the fold the first time so we gave him a new sheet and showed him what he was supposed to do.  Once again he cut along the fold so I taped the two pieces together and told him and showed him what he was supposed to do.  But once again he cut along the fold.  This happened one or two more times after this and it just left me speechless because the directions were clear and I showed him where he was supposed to cut but he just kept cutting it along the fold.  I talked to my CT about this after class and she told me that she was surprise because usually this student is really good with his hands and these types of things but she didn't know what went on today.  It was also interesting to see the range in fine motor skills of using scissors and how neatly some of the crocodiles were made, while other were more messily done.
Today I also had the pleasure of joining the kids in Art class.  the School is very fortunate that the students have both Studio Art and Performance Art.  Today I sat in on the Studio Art class and it was great.  The activity students did was to color tubed shaped pasta and then string them onto string and create a necklace, bracelet, belt, or whatever they wanted.  It was interesting to see all the different designs that the kids made.  Some followed the lines on the pasta, others drew against the grain, others used dots and made up their own pattern.  It was really great to see the kids doing art and really enjoying it.  The teacher was also telling me that the way she thought of this project was that she was given a box of pasta that spilled on the floor.  She then realized that the pasta had a hole and could be strung so she decided to do this quick and easy project.  It is a really great activity because it utilizes whatever the teacher can get and it is fun for the kids and cheap and allows us to conserve and not waste things.  As the saying goes, one man's garbage is another's gold.
To end on an interesting note, the students are learning about the life cycle of a frog and one of the students actually hatched a frog egg and it became a tadpole and is developing into a baby frog.  He brought it into class and left it on the teacher's table in a tank for everyone in the class to look at.  My CT also brought in a tank with frog eggs in it and hopefully the eggs will hatch into tadpoles and grow into frogs.  This allows kids to see what they are learning in action and it was just really cool to be able to see a tadpole since i've never seen one in real life.