Week 4!

Student teaching is just flying by. I can't believe that I have made it past my "midterm" of my first placement. I hope to keep up with posts better than I have thus far because so many fun and exciting things are happening everyday! Week four has been the best week yet because I am really feeling a sense of ownership and comfort in the classroom with the students and with my cooperating teacher. Now that I am understanding rules, procedures and expectations, everything is melting into place.

This week the fifth graders began a new unit on drawing tropical birds. It is a project that Ms. R really enjoys because the students spend a lot of time making their drawings unique. The students were impressed with how many examples she has from past students, and seemed to embrace it as a challenge to work hard enough to be one of her examples in the future.

Some second grade snowflakes after they were finished!

The second graders were working with printmaking. They spent one day folding and cutting paper snowflakes and another day using chalk to create prints of the snowflakes on white paper. It is a very simple project that the students seemed to enjoy. Some of them only created one print while others made up to three or four! Many of them turned out quite beautiful. This is the last snow project of the year, which makes Ms. R and I hopefully for no more snow days! Valentines day was actually a snow day for the school district! I assume the classes making snowflakes didn't influence that!

Third grade is working on one point perspective drawing. Many of them are doing quite well with it, while others struggle and wonder why we are doing it and how the lines on the paper make sense. I didn't know if perspective would be too advanced for this age group, but many of them are doing so great that it makes me re-think my original thought of perspective being saved for middle school! We introduced perspective as a way to make things look more realistic and to show distance in a drawing. Ms. R really used a good example of when students are outside for recess and they see their friend across the playground and they look really little, but when we walk up to them they get bigger and bigger. The students really understood what she meant!

Fourth grade palm trees on display in the hallway

In contrast to the snowflakes in second grade, the fourth graders worked on drawing palm trees with chalk all week! They were practicing how the palms come from the center of the tree trunk and how each palm could be drawn with simple lines.

The first graders were finishing up finger painting roosters and were introduced to Windslow Homer's seascapes. This was a great lead in before I start my edTPA unit of mixed media environments. The students created an oil pastel seascape featuring a boat, inspired by Windslow Homer in one day.

A first grade seascape/boat inspired by Winslow Homer

The kindergarteners were working on self portraits with crayon and cut paper that turned out very cute! It was fun to watch them explore facial features and how to use lines to draw them. Many of them told Ms. R and I that they learned how to draw eyes in a new way. We talked about using realistic colors to show how we really look. They used mirrors to discover eye colors, shapes and hair colors. This will be a two day project because many of them didn't get a chance to color their faces in after only one day.


I am starting to feel so much more comfortable in the classroom and look forward to next week when I start my edTPA lessons!