Dot Day! First Grade Attempt #1... It gets better.. but first it's a mess.

1^st Grade Dot Day Lesson Reflection (September 11^th): Class section 1A

Week 2

Students came in very noisy. I tried to calm them down by shutting off half the lights and restating our art room behavior expectations. Students were very distracted and it was hard to gain their attention. After they sat down I asked them to put their art supply boxes in the middle of their tables so they would not be tempted to touch them or play with anything. Many students were speaking out of turn, loudly, and to each other. I forgot to introduce myself to the class – an easily fixable mistake. I believe one of my problems was in the presentation of the lesson. 1^st graders want to move around and wiggle and get up and participate. I kept them at their tables and asked them up to the SMARTboard to help me with certain questions, but other than that they were being asked to stay still and quiet. This was not an easy task as I didn’t know their names yet either. They picked up on this immediately and from then on it was a contest to see if they could trip me up on names and seating charts.

I put the presentation on the board and explained to them what Dot Day was, using the book as a visual reference. Students were engaged at that point.. I started to show them my presentation and they were still listening, but getting more wiggly by the minute. We talked about lines and shapes (my moment to insert kinetic learning “draw the line in the air, draw the shape in the air” was missed at this time and I think that’s when the students started to tune out). I had students come up to the SMARTboard and point out/draw lines and shapes in the example paintings. The final slide was a large empty dot. I again invited students to participate in decorating my dot and in effect doing their own demonstration. I was not very clear in giving out steps until after the presentation was done.
I believe that most of the disciplinary and behavioral issues I had could have been prevented if I took the time to revisit and model expectations before starting the lesson. Another note my co-teacher made was that I needed to focus on modeling positive behavior rather than intervening and pointing out negative behavior. You want to point out who is doing the right thing rather than focusing on the distracting or misbehaving student(s). If their behavior persists, meeting with them privately removes the attention factor from their peers and you can get to the bottom of their behaviors.

 I believe I gave the kids too many choices for their paper sources – too many boxes and too many sizes of paper without much guidance. I also think I gave them too many steps at one time.. I demonstrated how to glue and arrange shapes on the dot and the proper procedure for gathering materials after the presentation – after I had lost most of their attention. The big issue in this group was discipline – a select group of students were causing all kinds of distractions for me and their classmates. One in particular I should have definitely conferenced with outside the classroom. 

Goals:

Begin classroom management and expectations before students walk in the room – remind them of the procedures in the art room

Introduce self to the class – they only see you once every 6 days!

Bring the students closer to what is happening – sit them on the floor or pass something around for them to handle and look at.

Reinforce positive behaviors – ignore negative unless harmful to others or self

Enforce hand raising and do not call on students out of turn

Stay on topic. Stay on target.

Step in sequence (Step 1_____, Step 2_____, Step 3______)

Address individual behavior problems with the student privately.

KNOW or LEARN the students’ names ASAP. Use a seating chart.

During the next class of 2^nd graders Mr. Keller modeled sitting the children down on the floor so they were:

a. closer to the screen

b. easier to monitor for behavior and attention

c. actively participating (kinetic learning)

He also modeled kinetic learning and had the students ‘draw’ lines in the air, talk along with him to describe ideas, and had them go up to the board to answer questions or draw.

Attention grabber for line-up: “Still like a statue” – kids have to freeze wherever they are and stop whatever they are doing to strike a pose. This allows the teacher to take headcount or just calm down a bunch of wiggly kids.

Main takeaway? I have very very very little experience working with and effectively managing students younger than 10. And I learned that the hard way. But there is a bright side... I had the weekend to reflect, reevaluate, and redesign my lesson for the next section of 1st grade. So there is a happy ending to the story.. it just comes later. 

Ms. Kanak