Fowler Drive Elementary Art Room
So far student teaching at Fowler Drive has been a great experience! The classroom is very spacious and has tons of storage for supplies and projects. The kids overall are well mannered and practice good behavior! The school works together with classroom management by using a painted yardstick that is divided into colored sections with clothes pins that have the students' names on them. Every student starts out on the green section at the beginning of the day. Students’ clips get moved if they are displaying bad behavior, to the yellow section which is a warning, or red which is time out. Students can go back to green or even farther to the blue or orange sections which means they did something really nice or had outstanding behavior or changed their behavior throughout the day. Every teacher carries this stick around the school all day,even to Specials, so that other teachers can reprimand good and bad behavior. I think it is a very good example of classroom management from what I have witnessed. Some of the teacher’s rules are to be respectful, listen to directions, and don’t talk when the teacher is talking(the basics).
Instruction usually begins with some kind of Powerpoint or even a video introducing the lesson. She then does a demo of some sort of step by step instruction. The best instruction method was when she took all the students to sit on the floor in a circle around her to show step by step how to make a pinch pot. Each student had a ball of clay that they practiced with while the teacher was demonstrating. Every student could see exactly what she was doing and it was easier for her to see if everyone was on the same step. This was with K-2, who we are teaching different clay units to. Kindergarten is making clay penguins, 1st grade is making mixed media melted snowman, and 2nd grade is making a mixed media birth baths. The week consisted of introducing the new units and finishing up 3-5 unit projects. My teacher is teaching the 3rd grade about paper weaving and op art, 4th grade is finishing up Day of the Dead Calaveras collage projects, and the 5th grade were finishing their statue of liberty parody drawings for the UGA MLK banquet. Every project seems to excite the students and be engaging, especially the clay projects! Materials are usually dispersed by table helpers who are assigned by numbered chairs and the number changes every week. Every student is responsible for cleanup when they are finished with their work.
