Setup
This week setup was short and sweet as there wasn’t much that needed doing, I had brought with me some worksheets I’d created to fill the gap of the logbooks for the time being, as I felt last week the whiteboard were fun but took too much time.
Cornell Boxes
We spent the first 45 minutes finishing off the Cornell boxes instead of 30 because it took 10-15 minutes for them to decide they wanted to use some paint as well as the materials we had brought with us. Also the photographing at the end took a little while as some of them were upset that they hadn’t finished. Overall the children were all happy with how their boxes turned out, we didn’t get a chance for a show and tell so I’m hoping that after Christmas for the meeting with Tim we can bring it their and have the discussion then.
Photographs
I asked the children last week to bring in a photograph that they had a story to tell with it, but none of them remembered. So we started off by getting the children to draw their picture or write about their picture and then share it with everyone. This meant that I couldn’t do the photography installation that I planned, but I thought instead we would spend it sharing stories to get them to understand how they can relate to any photograph. When I took out the slides, the children were so excited! I loved that they were so interested in the old technology, they all took it in turns to look at the photos in the light and then we discussed what they thought of the photographs. I filmed this sharing of stories and I think it was great that the children managed to all come up with their own stories. I wanted to get them to make up a story as well but we were running out of time.
Worksheets
Today I explained to them briefly about Arts Award, because it is a challenge to get my group of students to write so by telling them why it spurred them on to make a real effort at completing the worksheets. I plan to spend the week checking that I have done everything to fulfill the criteria for them getting the Arts Award as well as preparing them for after Christmas meeting David from the studios.
Behaviour
This week they were mostly well behaved, a couple of students stood out but Millie had explained that one had been having a bad week due to personal circumstances so I had expected him to act out, but after I took him aside to chat with him he made a real effort to get on with the work. Another student who is often easily distracted, wasn’t getting on so I also spoke to him alone and after that he came up to me saying “I tried really hard to concentrate, is this good enough?” and I felt really proud of him. I feel that the children have really made an effort with the project and I hope that it shows through in their work so they can achieve their arts award.
