lesson 2

Unit Title: Exploring Nature's Elements Through Art
Lesson Title: The Inner Beauty Installation: Discovering the Uniqueness of Geodes and Ourselves
Grade Level/Ages: Late Elementary/Ages 8-9	Instructors: Katie Hopkins & Maddie Tyska
Day /Date of lesson: Saturday, 02/18/2012	Room No: 204	No of Students: 22

Our lesson went well because the students enjoyed it, but we felt like we could have done a better job preparing. When we found out our projects from last week went missing, we were really upset and had to reorganize our schedule because the students were supposed to finish a second step on the first project.

Successes:

- The students were immediately interested in the rocks we had on display and one student started drawing the rocks in his sketchbook.

- We noticed a student posing so another student could draw his portrait.

- All of the students were really focused during sketchbook time and respected the new materials we introduced. (watercolor pencils, oil pastels, and woodless graphite pencils)

- All of the students were engaged in our book “Geo the Geode” and we brought in a rock with googely eyes on it, which they thought was really funny, and one girl even made it a name tag!

- The kids participated in our discussion about rock formation and how it relates to art and inner beauty.

- All of the students completed both activities (eggshell geodes and writing a phrase about a positive personality trait) and were excited to show their parents at the end of class.

- We felt like we were getting to know the students better and at knowing their names.

Improvements:

- We wasted a lot of time the night before trying to prepare 140 eggshells for the geode activity, because we thought each student would use 6 eggshells. They ended up only using 2 shells each because we realized we wouldn’t be able to store 140 cups of solution and eggshells.

- Since we had to change our lesson plans last minute, because we didn’t have the first project anymore, we didn’t establish a specific time schedule. This caused our discussion to go longer than expected and the students started to become restless and have side conversations.

- We could have choreographed our roles in speaking and managing the classroom better. There were moments when we would have to pause and decide who was going to say what.

- Our transitions took too long and were not efficient. We should have had the snack and materials measured out before hand.

- The boys and girls were sitting on opposite sides of the room, so next class we want to help the students get to know each other better so there is not a huge gap between genders. Since the boys were all sitting together, they were starting to act up and were singling out the new kid.

- We ran out of time to have a wrap up discussion, so we were not positive if the students understood why we made geodes and wrote personal reflections.

- We could have choreographed better who was going to document and who was going to pass out materials.

- We planned on showing large images of the pages in the book on an overhead projector, but there was a technical difficulty and it didn’t work.

- With the amount of chairs we had, it felt like the tables were too close to the walls and it was kind of hard to walk around the tables.

Next time:

- For next class we are going to do a project that doesn’t relate to science so much, because the mixing of minerals was over their heads and we did not know enough background information to explain it perfectly.

- Next time we are going to choreograph when one of us is speaking and when the other person is managing behaviors and documenting.

- Our next project is going to not have so many steps, because we want to see the students’ personalities to shine through by giving them more freedom to make aesthetic choices.