Katie and Jordan- Blown Glass Continued

Our Lesson:

Since our students were unable to finish their Chihuly projects last week, we decided to continue the lesson this week. We also used the opportunity to use another approach to help our students understand the blown glass process. We created different studio centers around the classroom where students were able to learn about blown glass at their own pace and in their own way.

 

The first studio center was the “Drawing Center.” This is where students were able to draw their own blown glass sculptures. At this center, students explored a variety of blown glass shapes and forms. It was very interesting to see the different approaches students took to drawing blown glass. 

The second center was where students didn’t focus as much on the form of blown glass but they focused on the color, pattern and designs that are created within blown glass. Here students used markers to color plastic cups and shrinky dink.

The third center was where the plastic cups and shrinky dink was melted. 

Since we had concluded that the behavioral issues from the previous week were from boredom and not enough challenge, we created the fourth center for those who need more responsibility and challenge in the classroom. At this center, students were able to plan, design and create the class blown glass chandelier. Once the melted plastic had cooled, the pieces were brought over to this station where some of the older students (Ripley, Max and Jack) were drawing out the shape and plan of the chandelier. This was a great hands on experience for the students, they were able explore, manipulate and actually experience the 3D aspect of blown glass sculptures.

What We Learned:

1.   Rules and Expectations- Although we tried to remind the students of our class rules, they still seem to forget them. Students were often talking over each other during class discussions. This was the first week that we really had an issue with clean-up as well, especially after snack. We must remind students that if they choose to make a mess, they are responsible for cleaning up after themselves.

2.  Melting Center: As expected, students were extremely interested in watching their plastic melt in the toaster oven. While it was great for students to see the melting process, they seemed to forget that our toaster oven was extremely hot. Brandon almost put his entire hand on the 350 degree toaster oven. If we use a toaster oven again, we would tape a box on the floor to keep students a safe distance away from the toaster.

3.  Snack: While the clean-up from snack was a mess, another issue was that this week every student decided that they were extremely thirsty. We made the mistake of giving one student an extra juice box and then everyone else wanted one too. Next time students are thirsty, we will offer them a cup for water once they finish their juice.

4.   Ripley: After viewing Ripley’s amazingly advanced drawings in her sketchbook, we asked her how old she was. This week we learned that Ripley is 7 years old. While she seems content in our classroom we need to be conscious of giving her some more challenges or responsibilities in the classroom if she seems to become bored with what we are doing in class.

What Worked:

1. Students never seemed to be unoccupied. This week studio centers really helped the students find something that really interested them and enabled them to learn and explore blown glass in their own way. It would be interesting to keep providing different learning approaches to a topic we present to our students.

2.Parents. Finally the parents decided to leave our classroom. Throughout the past few weeks Brandon has been really upset and would not leave his dad’s side in the classroom. This week his dad left the classroom and once he was gone Brandon was content, enjoyed the projects and really opened up to us. We have learned that it is typically the parents who are afraid of leaving their children rather than the children being afraid.

3.This week we really tried to budget our time so that we would have enough time for closure. Our time management really worked and the students completed what we had planned for them to and we also had enough time to discuss the lesson and then also introduce them to next week’s lesson.