HOLIDAYS PROJECT
Christmas Project.
For my Christmas project I worked within the school community with Catarina, we chose to work with the younger lasses and we decided that Year 3 would be the ideal age to have a fun experience. I had a lot of fun, and worked with someone who I do not often do so, so it was an incredibly different experience. This activity happened during the last two periods of Friday, it was exhaustive especially with kids that age, when they begin to test their limits and how much they can get the upper-hand of the situation. Even though there were some troublemakers, where the class-teacher interfered to help us get the attention of the class back, the group was fantastic and very enthusiastic, polite with their questions, but especially extremely creative.
The objective was to create a banner which they would decorate and would be exposed on the big boards outside the auditorium so that staff and students could view it when entering school. The banner said: “Happy Holidays”, Catarina and I wrote these words in large bold red, so that the students decorated with drawings around. The expression” happy holidays instead of Merry Christmas, came from a discussion we had that the school is an international one, and that we have people from many different ethnicities and religions. If we did not write “happy holidays” we would be limiting the banner which was suppose to be a greeting to all, and limiting our audience, excluding others. This is where we had to considered ethical implications.
We planned the activity in a more informal manner, only talking out what we would be doing step by step. This loose method of planning the activity occurred because we had very few experience working with each other and especially working with younger students, we established than that everything we planned was very likely to be modified and that we had to be opened to improvisation and quick adaptation with that group. The central idea was to discuss in a very simple way the various symbols of holidays and all the different things they could draw, we also talked about colors and other things besides Christmas, such as the candles of Hanukkah. This initial talk was to get them thinking about others and how other people spend their holidays, either at the beach in the southern hemisphere or in snow in the north.
Even though we had not extensive experience working together, we knew most of our main strengths, because I was slightly more talkative I was the one who initiated the conversation, but Catarina also has this aspect of her personality very strong, so we basically complemented each other and worked very well collaboratively.
On of the things that we had to alter was the number of students, which would be drawing on the banner at the same time. Not all of them could be drawing at the same time, thus we quickly organized a system of rotation, where half the students would be at the floor drawing on the banner and the other half would be practicing their drawings and developing ideas on the desks. This rotation worked really well and the students respected that.
Catarina and I would walk around the class, looking at kids drawings, suggesting different colors and complementing their work. This rotation, even though it was not planned worked extremely well, showing our strengths in flexibility to adapt to the situations present. It was a mutual characteristic and allowed for greater success.
By the end of the activity, I had students giving me their individual drawings as a gift, for me to remember them. I really was not expecting it, I felt surprised and very satisfied. Of course it was very tiring controlling a class of kids, which are constantly pushing limits, but the happiness and the reward that children offer is just uncountable. This experience really changed my ideas regarding primary teaching, I used to think of it as a quite lame and exhaustive job, but I realized it is none of it, kids are very inspiring and they are in essence kind.
For my Christmas project I worked within the school community with Catarina, we chose to work with the younger lasses and we decided that Year 3 would be the ideal age to have a fun experience. I had a lot of fun, and worked with someone who I do not often do so, so it was an incredibly different experience. This activity happened during the last two periods of Friday, it was exhaustive especially with kids that age, when they begin to test their limits and how much they can get the upper-hand of the situation. Even though there were some troublemakers, where the class-teacher interfered to help us get the attention of the class back, the group was fantastic and very enthusiastic, polite with their questions, but especially extremely creative.
The objective was to create a banner which they would decorate and would be exposed on the big boards outside the auditorium so that staff and students could view it when entering school. The banner said: “Happy Holidays”, Catarina and I wrote these words in large bold red, so that the students decorated with drawings around. The expression” happy holidays instead of Merry Christmas, came from a discussion we had that the school is an international one, and that we have people from many different ethnicities and religions. If we did not write “happy holidays” we would be limiting the banner which was suppose to be a greeting to all, and limiting our audience, excluding others. This is where we had to considered ethical implications.
We planned the activity in a more informal manner, only talking out what we would be doing step by step. This loose method of planning the activity occurred because we had very few experience working with each other and especially working with younger students, we established than that everything we planned was very likely to be modified and that we had to be opened to improvisation and quick adaptation with that group. The central idea was to discuss in a very simple way the various symbols of holidays and all the different things they could draw, we also talked about colors and other things besides Christmas, such as the candles of Hanukkah. This initial talk was to get them thinking about others and how other people spend their holidays, either at the beach in the southern hemisphere or in snow in the north.
Even though we had not extensive experience working together, we knew most of our main strengths, because I was slightly more talkative I was the one who initiated the conversation, but Catarina also has this aspect of her personality very strong, so we basically complemented each other and worked very well collaboratively.
On of the things that we had to alter was the number of students, which would be drawing on the banner at the same time. Not all of them could be drawing at the same time, thus we quickly organized a system of rotation, where half the students would be at the floor drawing on the banner and the other half would be practicing their drawings and developing ideas on the desks. This rotation worked really well and the students respected that.
Catarina and I would walk around the class, looking at kids drawings, suggesting different colors and complementing their work. This rotation, even though it was not planned worked extremely well, showing our strengths in flexibility to adapt to the situations present. It was a mutual characteristic and allowed for greater success.
By the end of the activity, I had students giving me their individual drawings as a gift, for me to remember them. I really was not expecting it, I felt surprised and very satisfied. Of course it was very tiring controlling a class of kids, which are constantly pushing limits, but the happiness and the reward that children offer is just uncountable. This experience really changed my ideas regarding primary teaching, I used to think of it as a quite lame and exhaustive job, but I realized it is none of it, kids are very inspiring and they are in essence kind.