The First Steps

Today, I went to Alpine Elementary School for the first time. Mrs. Black and I had already agreed on the days art lesson, "Landscapes of Utah." As this was my first visit, I observed for the first hour and became acquainted with the layout of the room and was able to see how the students interacted with each other and with Mrs. Black.
Before starting the lesson, we played a quick "name game" to help me learn the student's names and let them move around a little. This was their first day back after a long weekend for Fall Break, so they were still in "vacation mode" a little. I was able to learn a number of their names, but I will still need to work on memorizing them.
The lesson was on Utah's landscapes. The students had been learning about Utah's early history and the different regions that make up Utah. To help them remember the different regions, we wanted them to make landscapes depicting their favorite place in Utah using construction paper to make a collage.
To begin the lesson, I talked briefly about perspective, diminishing size, overlapping, and horizon lines to help them as they constructed their landscape. For the words that were new to them, I wrote them on the board and we talked about definitions to aid in their vocabulary.
Once the instruction of what we were going to be doing and how was over, Mrs. Black reviewed the regions and habitats of Utah with the students to refresh their memory of the different types of landscapes that are found in Utah. We then set them free to gather the construction paper, scissors, and glue that they would need to make their landscape collage.
One of the challenges of the project was that some of the students wanted to draw their landscape. They didn't quite understand how to collage. For those that were having difficulty getting started because of this, I was able to go around and help them as needed. I believe that this may have been better addressed if I had been more clear with my instruction in the beginning. In hindsight, I should have provided some examples of landscape collages. By having an example of the type of work they should be creating, it would have helped the students to better understand what was expected from them.
Many of the students used diminishing size to help show perspective, but not too many used overlapping. Upon reflection, I now know that I should have stressed this more to help them understand how to create depth in their landscape. I mentioned the use of overlapping as a way to assess their learning in the lesson plan, but I failed to clearly state those expectations.
In the future, I plan to make sure that if I mention something as a means to assess the children, I need to make sure that they are aware of that assessment so that they can properly demonstrate their learning.
As this was my first attempt to teach elementary school, I made a few mistakes, but I will learn from them and continue to better myself through the practice of teaching and reflecting. This has been a great experience and I hope to utilize what I have learned to make my next lesson even better.
To view the lesson plan for Landscapes of Utah, you can go to Lesson 1 from the Home page.