Week 3, Marlborough School

September 27, 2011- Day 3

To prepare for today’s class I brought home the bin and reorganized the materials.  I separated the yarn into many spools:  I wrapped each color onto several different pieces of cardboard so that many students could be using the same materials at the same time.  I cleaned out the fabric a bit and trimmed down the larger pieces to accommodate a larger variety for the class to choose from.  I bought 2 more hot glue guns and some ordinary pipe cleaners.  Once at school I set up two hot glue stations, with two glue guns at each.  Each station also had a large metal tray for gluing on.  I set all of the heads and bodies out and as the students filed in, they retrieved their belongings.  I gave brief instructions (pertaining to the glue guns and the plan of the day: finish peeps, work on profiles, and work on town name).  Then the kids went to it.  We were joined by a new student today, I helped get her started and then paired her off with some of the other kids who were further along.  I made rounds, offering help where needed.  Most of the class finished making peeps today.  Some went ahead and began shelters… even though this was not allowed.  One thing that would be helpful at this point in the game would be to bring a helper to direct the students that are ahead and keep them on task.  I could allow them to make pets and things, but I am not going to because not everyone will have an opportunity to do so at this time.  I think it’s really important at this point to forge as a group.  I tried to get the students who were ahead to work together on town names or alone on peep profiles.  This was harder than it should have been.  One student suggested that we have a medieval themed village.  I told him I thought that was a great idea and we could discuss it at our first meeting.  

I stopped the class when there were about eight minutes left to allow for clean up…. Kids did what they do, which is to line up and not clean.  This was corrected.  I wonder if by Christmas break we will clean up as a group?  I took a tally of who would need some more time to work on peeps and let the class know that we will have our first meeting next week to do some peep introductions.

Materials for next week:  camera, clip board, folders

Today we learned/ used:  to work together a bit, hot gluing skills, listening skills, cleaning skills!