Jaylah Jones’s ePortfolio

This week’s lesson was cool crafts with 3rd grade girls. So the students created jewelry boxes with popsicle sticks and a hot glue gun. They started out with counting the amount of rows for each side of the box which depended on what they wanted to fit in it. They also decided what kind of divider they wanted inside; horizontal , vertical, diagonal etc. After the box was created they designed it to their liking to complete the project. The students were very pleased with this lesson and it gave them confidence in their independent abilities.

This week we are approaching the end of the school year so I wanted to do something fun for the students. Therefore, I decided on doing DIY giant bubbles as the lesson using a few supplies; dish soap, baby shampoo, socks, cups, string, straws. Each student tested a different technique, the students prepared the solution of dish soap, shampoo and water in a communal bucket. The different methods had all different results. The cup and straw created small tight bubbles, whereas the string in the straws mimicked a giant bubble wand resulting in a giant bubble and lastly the sock and water bottle created bubble snakes; tight medium sized bubbles that got longer as you blew. The students were excited and satisfied with the results of this lesson.

During this week of summer camp, I assisted with the arts and crafts club. The students used cut-up pieces of paper then glued it to an outline of a drawing to create a colorful collage. The kids found it interesting as they searched through the scraps for certain colors and shapes, that spoke to them. The scraps of construction paper were cut up by the kids and helped give the summer teachers an understanding of how careful the kindergarteners are with scissors.

In this week my class was combined with another which meant I had more students than anticipated. The class was a majority boys, so I chose a car themed activity. The project was for them to design a car on paper, then take that design and create a model from kits. After the models were made they built a race track for the cars and had a friendly competition. Unfortunately I was short on time and couldn’t get a picture, but the students had lots of fun being unique and creative with this activity.

For this week’s project we’re preparing for the upcoming month of June, so the class planted seeds of Basil, Cosmos, and Nasturtium (flowers). The idea behind this project was to allow creative freedom with an hands on activity, by designing their pots. As well as giving them a sense of responsibility in taking care of the plants. To this day all of their plants continue to grow and they continue to give me weekly updates on their progress.

The name of this week’s class was “Messy Experiments” so we got messy and made kinetic sand. To make this the students mixed baby oil, corn starch and sand to a specific consistency where it is moldable yet firm. This class was made up of 5th graders who can be impatient and messy when it comes to activities like this one. At the end their patience did pay off and all of the kinetic sand came out just as they wanted. I noticed the students liked the sensory stimulation that the sand gives making this one of their favorite activities.

For this week, I decided to use air dry clay for the activity. The clay works by wetting it to mold then letting it dry to harden. The goal of this project was for the students to create items that have practical use. Prior to sculpting as a class we brainstormed different things they thought they could make where they came up with things like bowls, spoons, jewelry etc. The class made their creations, but while we waited for the pieces to dry to pass the time we did a potato clock project. This is where you use a potato to power a clock. Although not everyone’s design turned out how they expected every one was proud of what they made.

This was the first week of projects, I decided to pick a project that would give me insight on the students creative preferences. The project they created was personalized hats. The students picked out a hat with their choice of color first. They then decided on using paint, water colors, stencils , markers etc. I gained knowledge of the different personalities within the classroom. I noticed how some students were organized while others were quite messy. Finally, I plan to use this information for further lesson plans.