CHILDREN'S MUSEUM OF ART NYC – VALERIE KHARCHENKO – 5 HOURS
This week was my first time leading the Exploring Media class and teaching a lesson. This came about on short notice, I only had a week to prepare my lesson. This was kind of a struggle for me, but I realized that it was something that I needed to experience. Teachers get thrown curve balls and are constantly having to think on their feet. The information I got about the lesson I would be teaching was that it would be based on teaching the students about sets for animations. With this information I created my lesson on this idea and designed an activity that would be fun and engaging for the students. I started the class out with showing some youtube videos of different hand made sets. After showing the videos I explained to the class tat we would be akin and designing our own sets. We brainstormed ideas for what kind of set we would all be collaborating on. We came to a conclusion that we would be making a house and a tunnel in which would connect to the house. I split the class into two groups, so that it would be easier to disperse the teachers. The group that I was working with was the house group. We sat down and brainstormed ideas for how we would go about building the house and what colors and designs we would be painting on it. We decided that the base of the house would be rainbow, the roof covered in stars, and on top of the roof would be kittens. I took a group of kids to come and collect different colors of paint and we started to build and paint our house. Some challenges were keeping the mess under control. The main things that I learned from teaching my lesson were that the more detail about exactly what will be expected from students is vital. Also being more prepared for a huge mess should be addressed. All and all I thought that my lesson was pretty successful, all of the kids were really excited about painting and the fact that they would be creating their own sets. I now know what kind of dilemmas can happen and know how to handle them. I am looking forward to doing my second lesson.
