Reflection #12

This week we only taught two lessons so it could have been more low key but we also had our observations on those days. So far we've taught for seven days! One of the days this week incorporated our digital story about Utah and our kids loved it! We also had each of them make a paper quilt square with a specific Utah symbol assigned to them. They did an amazing job and really took pride in their artwork. After Katie and I assembled it and added our own quilt squares, we hung it on the class bulletin board and it looked beautiful.

For the quilt square activity they were each given a fact card about their specific symbol. Then the drew their symbol on their quilt square with a title and listed one or two of their favorite facts. It was a great way to apply their knowlwdge and assess their understanding of the topic through art.

The following day we taught about landforms and made salt dough maps. Note to self, send a not home to the parents to make the salt dough and do not attempt to make enough for 31 kids! Lesson learned. It was an awesome project though. The salt dough was color coded to match one fo the three landforms in Utah. I built a sample one under the document camera as they followed along. They had a blast and I could overhear some of them saying how much fun they were having. It was a great way to teach about landforms and incorporate art. The teacher wasn't going to have time to make the salt maps so I'm really glad we had the opportunity to make them with the students.

I will definitely do this activity again if I teach fourth grade. It's amazing to me hoe much art can encourage learning and enhance it. Again, it was a great tool to use as a post assessment to check for understanding. All of them turned out fantastically and it was totally worth making 93 balls of dough for (each child got three different colors of dough). I'm just a fan of art. I'm a fan of giving students the opportunity to stretch their brains and use art to learn. It has been a great tool to have for Social Studies. I didn't like Social Studies in elementary school and I think if a little more hands on art would have been involved I would have remembered more. Our brains remember visuals much more than words and art allows you to do that.