If It's Not Hollow, It Will explode!!!!

This week's lesson focused around transformation of animals in nature, which built upon the students' exploration of transformation in nature that took place last week. We asked the students to think about what transforms in nature, specifically types of things in nature that change, and we accompanied the discussion with time lapse videos of things changing, such as caterpillars, tomatoes, flowers, stars, and blowfish. The kids were very engaged and enjoyed the videos, and I think that it was a great way to start off the lesson. Abby gave a brief example of what we are looking for in this project, and then the students were asked to think up their own animal transformations. Many of the students did a very good job, and imagined creatures such as a rabbit with big paws so it could run faster and an elephant with a curly, long trunk so it could scoop up water and food easier. Abby and Christy combined forces to give a tutorial on clay techniques, and the students had a blast wedging their clay balls on the back table. They then had over 45 minutes to work on their animals, and this is where the class separated into two categories. One group excelled and easily manipulated the clay to create their visions, while others had a very difficult time getting things to work for them. For example, one student was confident that her project would be easy because her animal was a snake. However, by the end of the class, all she had finished was the head. This variant of skill levels was difficult to anticipate and frustrating to try to deal with, since there are only two of us to help everyone. It was also frustrating to not be able to give everyone the same amount of attention and help, and I think it's going to be a challenge to proceed with next week's lesson. How can we get every student tofinish their projects on time if they struggled so much during the first week?