Happy Feet

I was recently enlightened by the movie “Happy Feet”  as I watched it with some very special kids. The girl, who is a very opinionated 5 year old, kept looking at me and saying that I looked like I was about to cry.

Well, I was not crying, but I was feeling for the main penguin, named Mumble.  He is an Emperor Penguin and as an Emperor penguin singing is considered to the only “penguin” way of expressing yourself. The problem is that Mumble does not fit into this mould.   And he get left out of the learning, sat at the back of the class and chastised for the way his feels music with his body, apposed vocalizing it.  As I was watching this I felt like how many students are sat at the back of the class or chastised for expressing themselves in the only way they know or feel, but it is not conventional or easier to teach.   The questions, “How does a teacher/ parent support this child?” “What will happen if these students are not supported?” were what really made me feel like crying. This is a children's cartoon, so the rejected penguin is faced with many challenges of which make him into a stronger, wiser penguin, unscathed by the lengths he went to show he was not “a bad egg.” In real life I saw the student falling through he cracks, so to speak.  I have seen and know too many students that do not fit the mould some schools expect their students to fit into and essentially just phase these students out.  After being in practicum classes where there are students that needed that extra support or adapted instruction, I can understand how easy it can be to overlook the different types of expression or learning.  My hope is that with little reminders like these children's cartoons, we can keep in mind the Mumbles in our classes.  

Student Teacher Excitement

Another aspect that really enjoyed about the art show was the anticipation for the students to arrive.  It was exciting to see the students from other classes.  I really did not think that anyone from my Kindergarten/Grade 1 class was going to come, due their age and family complexities.  But it was still wonderful to observe my peers guiding their students around the art show and the students being excited to see their art work and seeing their student teacher again.  To my surprise a student from my previous practicum attended and towards the end of the show a couple of students from my practicum class showed up, adding and completing art show experience. 

The informal nature of the art show really opened the door to interact with the students’ families and for them to get to know more about us and where we go to school. The conversations and I had with some of the parents/ family members that attended was a great experience.

Falling into Winter

To commemorate the end of our practicums we, as the elementary second-year cohort, organized an art show to display and bring light to any fine arts that we taught in our practicum classes.  The students and their families were invited to see their pieces of art on display and come visit the campus.

The process of planning the art show began before practicum and when we had been sleeping a few more hours a night.  At the beginning planning seemed to start well, we separated ourselves into committees.   There were four committees: The decorating committee, the media committee, the welcoming committee and the wonderful clean up committee.  After we had gathered in our committees and devised a course of action for what our committee was responsible for, we dispersed into practicum.  After practicum we reconvened into our committees and presented what we had planned and got started executing the plan to make it as successful as we hoped. 

I had the pleasure of being part of the decorations committee.  We came up with the theme/title “Falling into Winter.”  We felt this would suit the art show fabulously because most of lesson would have been fall themed, as that was season we were in during our practicum and at the time of the art show we assumed that winter would have graced us with her presence.  We envisions leaves and snowflakes intermingled through out the show and was able to pull it off due to the committee chair saving a big garbage bag full of leaves.  Each display had a basket of real fall leaves on their table and there were snowflakes dangling and floating through out the entire art space.  After seeing everything put together and all the art displayed I was very thankful for the opportunity and for the organizing of the committees.  It helped to ensure the responsibilities were not only left to a few people.  Everyone had his or her roles in making the art show a success, and to me the teamwork was also gratifying.  Thank you to all my peers with making the time something to remember. 

Drama

During my practicum I was able to embrace music by attending some of the music classes that my practicum class went as one of my CT’s prep classes. Earlier I had touched on lessons that incorporated dance and also visual arts.  The drama aspect of Fine Arts was one that I sort of shied away from.  But to bite the bullet and give it the old college try, I taught a lesson that incorporated role play.

I explained that it was time to clean out my house.  And it was each student job to pick a piece of furniture and when I came around and said “ I think I will get ride of this,” the student would reply, “No, Not Me!” To which I replied, “Why not?”  And the students had to give a reason why I should not discard them, without giving away what piece of furniture they were. And after the reason is given, the class would guess what each student was pretending to be.  As a hint the class was spit into four groups and each group was assigned a room in the house, this way it narrowed down what type of furniture they were and we didn’t have a bunch or reoccurring furniture that I was keeping. 

This lesson focused on being a good audience and also using a big voice so everyone in the audience can hear the hints and make a guess as to what they are.  The students seemed to really enjoy guessing and being the one stating the case as to why they needed to stay in the house.  It was also very rewarding to see the mouse like talkers almost roar like a lion while they were in character.  This will be a lesson that can be used in many different variations and age ranges. 

Scream

As many of my fellow peers have express, Halloween day may not be the best day to teach a new concept or test out a new strategy, because chances are students on this very exciting day will have a difficult time concentrating fully on an assignment with their neighboring peers in costume, the make up on their face itching or the colorful wig that goes with their costume is making them too hot, the distractions are endless. 

On Halloween day I was able to do a visual art activity focusing on the famous painting title “The Scream,” by artist Edvard Munch.  I felt that this painting fitted nicely in with the theme of the day, the distractions, the spookiness, and the fun. 

The focus of the activity was the warm and wavy colours in the sunset and cool colours in the water.  The rest of the picture was what up to their imagination. 

This is a sample from one of the students in my practicum class.