Field experience visit one

The School-Within- School at Peabody


The school is located about ten minutes walking distance from the Union Station, . The three-story school building is located in a nice neighborhood right in front of a park.The Art teacher in charge of the class was Ms. Marla McLean; she showed us the classroom and introduced Tina, Ingrid and me to the kids. The classroom was very colorful filled with drawings on the walls, paper’s sculptures, and colored glass object that reflected a nice rainbow on top of main table in the center of the room. It also had shelves with transparent boxes of different materials, books, and several areas designed for various activities like music, science,drawing, and a pet‘s area where they had a big aquatic turtle.The group of kids was small only six boys and girls with a good integration of different ethic backgrounds. They were about six years old, and looked happy to be there and interested in what the teacher was saying.

The class started at 1:30 and the subject of the day was recycling. The teacher introduced the topic by asking question about recycling, discussing how long it takes for different objects and material to disintegrate and the importance of recycling. She asked them to think about a way of using recycling material to build something. What I it will be? Who will use it? In addition, where it will stay? It was interesting to see the way that six-year-old kids were brainstorming like adults would do in their own jobs. Everyone looked very committed to his or her answer and insights about the topic matter. At 1:50 the teacher changed the activity, she took them outside of the classroom to the recreation area. There, she taught them how to use plastic shopping bags to inter-weave and create a rug made out of plastic bags . Each one of them participated in the process of creation, cutting the bags, inter-weaving them or helping others passing the bag trough the guides. At 2:10 the teacher Stopped the activity and gave them free time to play!

The two boys decided to play in the water recreation center a small like popcorn car, with water in the interior where they play with tubes,color stones and containers to filter the water or make the rock pass through the tubes.The girls were drawing with color markers and paper plates some of them put the plate on top of a circular base that was spinning to create their drawing. It was interesting to see the expression in their faces when the design on top of the plate was changing and how they experimented with color, lines and the cardboard surface.

Until this moment, the three of us were observing the class and we did not interact with the kids, but when free-time started, we moved around the classroom. Ingrid was painting with markers with one of the boys that just finished playing in the water station. Tina was watching the fairy’s houses and I was watching a book of masks in the table in the center of the room. One of the boys came to talk with me and ask me to help him to build a mask for him, so I cut the holes for the eyes on the paper plates that they were using and painted the face of a tiger on it. Five minutes after a girl joined us, and after another, one and we were creating different masks adding other material to finish it. At 2:45 the teacher asked to clean up and the class was finished. When the kids left, we shared our experiences with the teacher. We asked a couple of question and our first observation day was finished.

It was remarkable, the way that the activities and even the free time encouraged the kids to build a spirit of creativity and freethinking attitude.