Martian Mania: A whole new experience

This week, the students further explored aliens by focusing on the different creatures in 'Monsters vs. aliens.' The class made alien puppets out of neon cardstock and scrapbook paper cut into crazy shapes as well as 3D aliens out of model magic and abstract objects.

We changed a lot this week in response to last weeks lesson. We added more centers which gave the students room to explore various concepts and materials that we have been working with. The classroom was much less structured and gave the students free reign for much of the class to make discoveries in each of 5 centers. Also, by including examples from the student's own popular culture, the students became much more enthusiastic about the projects and could bring their own knowledge into the conversation and learning environment.

We also tried to give up some control and just let learning happen instead of forcing it. I think all of us learned a great deal from teaching this lesson. We realized one of the hard things to learn is that working with young children we, as adults, tend to overshadow them and try to direct them in the ways we want them to go. We all learned that by letting the students discover on their own without forcing our own ideas upon them, that they had amazing ideas of their own to share and explore with each other. While some of the student's work might not have fit our original conceptions of what they should be doing (from an adults point of view), it does not mean that learning isn't going on. As teachers, we instead observed that the learning was much more meaningful when the students were able to explore and experiment with their ideas and the materials on their own terms. By stepping back and 'playing' with them, we were able to realize that.