Week 2- MLK Elementary

This week was a little unusual because of Monday's unintentional snow day. While DCPS had a two-hour delay, Mr. Hill alerted me to the fact that they had six students show up- in the entire school. As you could expect, many of the students were riled up from their day of playing in the snow. The younger students in the first two classes were drawing pictures of the snow "at night" on black construction paper using the new Crayola 'Construction Paper' crayons. The kindergarten class was SILENT as they worked. I, honestly, have never observed a group of students being that diligent about their art making. Mr. Hill seemed to have created the perfect storm of art making for that day and that class. The second group was a little rowdier, talking and a little more restless when they got to the class, they stayed that way throughout the art making portion of class. At the end of their class period Mr. Hill held up their pictures and the kids talked about what was going on in the picture. The kids didn't have to say if it was their picture, but it definitely made them feel special that everyone was talking about their art. What I thought was interesting was that Mr. Hill paid particular attention to not talk about the ones where kids didn't follow directions- but that he made clear that it wasn't because he didn't like the art but that they didn't put their name on it, didn't include snow, etc. I thought it was an interesting way of ensuring that students would try to meet the objective of the assignment in the future, without hindering the creative experience.
The third group was the third grade students, who Mr. Hill was attempting to have play pictionary. This did not work that well. The girls seemed to get the objective of the game pretty quickly, but the boys were really not understanding how the game worked. This experience really highlighted how the students interacted with each other. The girls have such a great difference in size, it is easy to see how the pecking order has been established. As for the boys, the 'cool kid' was quickly picked unanimously to go first. As the game progressed it became obvious which boys were vying for the 'second in command' position of the social hierarchy. They acted out, cracked jokes, and were generally all over the place. There were a few boys who genuinely enjoyed the game and really wanted to play- while the other boys were ruining their experience.