Setup
Unfortunately during this week I found out that the log books used for Arts Award are currently being remade and are at the printers now, which means they won’t be ready for use until next year. So I explained this to Millie at the start and asked if she could bring mini whiteboards so I could do a quiz with the children to see what they remember. I will try to do this each week so they have pictures to remind them and stick in their logbooks. Other than that setup this week was straight forward, I just had to bring in all the children’s boxes that I had kept safe in my studio.
Finger Personalities
This work looks at how our personalities change depending on who we are with, whether it’s with your friends, parents or meeting someone for the first time and to make it personal to them, these descriptions were put in an outline of their hands. I showed them my example and explained it so they could also get to know me a bit better in order for them to feel like they can share with me too. I handed out a personality trait sheet as well to guide them if they were struggling with words to use; I think this was really helpful as a lot of them used it as a starting point. While they were working I had the opportunity to talk to each of them individually about their personalities and how they behaved outside the classroom. The really important part of this was discussing with them why they were like this, for some children they acknowledged that they misbehaved for attention or others that they were shy because they didn’t feel confident in certain lessons etc. One of the students worried me a little bit after saying that he couldn’t write about how he was with his friends because he didn’t have any friends. Knowing there must be a reason he thought this, rather than saying ‘You must have some friends?’ I thought it would be much more appropriate to find out why he felt that he didn’t have anyone. He said that since he moved to the school 2 years ago he found it difficult to get friends when everyone already had friends because he is shy. I decided that rather than focus on this I would ask him about other times his personality might be different and then I would keep an eye on him throughout the next few lessons. After everyone had 5 different personalities written down, I explained that during the next exercise I would be taken them away to film them talking about these personalities. My aim for this was to get them more confident talking to me one to one but also to record their thoughts and feelings.
Cornell Boxes
I wanted these boxes to be finished by the end of this lesson, but they are still working on them so next lesson I will give them half an hour and if they want to continue it will have to be on their own time. I was really impressed by their enthusiasm this lesson with their boxes, I managed to speak with all of them and help some of them with techniques for building a shelf inside it or strengthening the outside.
Filming
All of the children were nervous, but I liked that they began to reassure each other throughout the lesson. It was a good opportunity to talk to each of them without the rest of the class listening, I felt that some of the louder children really opened up and behaved a lot better. Some admitting that when they are in front of everyone they want to show off and be the joker of the class. I thought it was very mature of them to do this and felt very proud that all of them made a good effort to talk to me on camera. Unfortunately because I didn’t have a tripod I had to perch the camera on the windowsill and therefore couldn’t check that the camera was entirely in focus, meaning that some of the footage is focusing on the background. Also the sound isn’t very clear because the space we were working in reverberates quite a lot, especially with 8 children talking loudly with each other! I’m hoping when I get a chance next week to have a look at the footage on Premiere Pro to see whether I can edit it at all.
Quiz
At the end of the lesson I asked the children a series of questions in order for them to have something towards their arts Award logbooks. A few of them struggled with thinking 2 weeks ago, which is a shame because I feel perhaps if I had the time last week they would have done a lot better. So perhaps next week I will ask a few of the same questions. A couple of students really stood out and wrote some precise and well thought out answers, which really impressed me.
Behaviour
This week the behavior was really good, they all listened when they were told and made a good effort with all the work we did together. Unfortunately one student has left the group, he didn’t participate very well last week and came in this week with the same attitude so Millie took him outside to speak with him but he didn’t want to attend anymore. Although it is sad to lose a student, I think it has benefited the class, I can pay attention to the children that want to be here even if they misbehave at the end of the day they do want to improve. I feel he wouldn’t have got anything out of my workshops if he didn’t want to participate.
