Aboriginal Snakes

In college I spent 6 months In Melbourne, Australia as part of a Study Abroad Program. 

Me in front of Uluru 

We wore Mosquito Nets on Our head to keep off All the FLIES!

What a rewarding experience!!  Melbourne was the cleanest and most functioning city I have ever seen and the people were so friendly!  During my stay there I traveled with a group to the center of Australia.. To the place which makes up what most American's imagine of Australia.. The Great Outback.  The red sand, Hot sun, and nothing but rocks!  One thing you don't see in the pictures are all the FLIES!

kangaroo Tails- Poor Kangaroos!
                                                                                                                     

Endangered Animals

Every child has some sort of collection growing up and mine was Panda Bears.. I was obsessive about it!  My collection resulted both in me having over a thousand Pandas AND a huge awareness for endangered animals.   So any chance I get to do a project involving Panda Bears or anything involving Endangered Animals, I go for it!  

 My Inspiration for this lesson came from a Kohl's ad.  They were advertising a T-Shirt with a cartoon cat's face made out of a Peace Sign.  What a great idea.. lots of animals have the long snout nose that can go along with the bottom of the peace sign.  As you will see below we exaggerated the animals that were naturally capable of this look- We call it our creative License!

 So My third and fourth grade special Education Class were already studying animals in class so I decided to extend upon their classroom lesson and focus on Endangered Animals!  We talked about how some animals were very close to extinction and a lot of the cause came from Humans! The World Wildlife Fund is a great site to use and you can even adopt an animal in need for your classroom!  I obviously "adopted" a panda as a child and then in my classroom everyone brought in a dollar and we adopted a "class pet"  THis really got the students involved in the project and to feel like they were helping!  

Dinosaurs

 I love collaborating with other teachers and I love Dinosaurs- So when the Librarian came to me and wanted to do a Dinosaur unit together I was very excited and immediately set to work on creating a Lesson that was suitable for the class.  It is an autistic Class with students ranging from 9-12 but most are on a first grade level.  I always have so much fun working with this class and like to include as many textures as possible!  

 THe Librarian gave me a list of each student's assigned dinosaur that they would be researching so I got to work on finding step by step drawings for these.  Conveniently, I had Dinosaur Texture Paper so the students were able to follow their worksheet and step by step draw their specific dinosaurs.  The students then cut out their dinosaurs, with some assistance.

Animals & the Alphabet

My Prek autistic Class consists of 6 kids and has proven to be quite the challenge.  What I have learned so far is to keep them moving!!  SO what I do, is have a few projects going on at once.  THe supplies are all set up at different tables and we do one step of one project and then Move to the next table and start a new project and in the 45 minutes we will probably start 4 different projects.  For this specific class I always try to go along with what their classroom teacher is doing because they need as much reenforcement as possible.  

At this time they were working on the Alphabet and Animals.

Jazz Music Collage

This project was in collaboration with the music teacher.  I took the music sheet to the song the class was singing/dancing to in the Black History Month Concert & had the students use these as part of their collage.  An Autistic Class completed these.  The students ranged from 1st to fourth grade.  We focus on manipulation of materials as well as arrangement/spacing.  Key Concepts that are reviewed are Collage, Warm vs. Cool Colors, Background, three-dimensional vs. two dimensional.  

The first thing I do is dump a bunch of music notes onto their tables.  These I have cut out of manila folders.  The students pick which ones they want and tape them onto their paper.  


Next, the students are given warm colors ( I tell them to think of a flame)  They sponge paint their papers going right over their music notes.  

African Masks

I have a special education class where the kids range from 8-11 and have an array of disabilities  which makes for quite a challenge.  This lesson interested all of them and the older kids were able to help the younger. I altered this lesson by making a bunch of different shaped masks  the students could choose from and trace.  Depending on the ability of your class, the kids could draw their own to create more variety of masks. 

 I showed them a PowerPoint Presentation showing them all different styles of African Masks  I pointed out the different shapes, animal qualities, and designs that the masks had.  

Shoe Monsters

My Little Pre-Kers are so much fun!  This was a very texture-filled project which was great for this class!  For Black History Month we learned about Jan Ernst Matzeliger who invented the Shoe Lasting machine, which connected the upper part of the shoe to the sole, a painstaking process that was usually done by hand. This invention revolutionized the shoe making industry.  

•  We started by taking model magic and rolling it out.  Next I had each student lay their model magic on a piece of newspaper and place it on the floor.  The students pressed their foot into the clay.  THe aids and I helped make sure the kids were pressing their shoe hard enough and getting all of the edges.  THe bottom of shoes make great patterns/designs!  
• THe adults used a knife to cut off the extra clay
• I showed the kids how to make simple shapes out of the clay.. We rolled it into our hands to get balls, I showed them how to twist two colors together, and how to pull it to make it long and skinny for an arm or leg.  
• The Next class the kids glued their dried Monster Bodies to a Piece of rail road board.  This is thicker paper which supports the heaviness of the clay.  
• Today we decorate the Monsters.  Different supplies were placed at each set of desks and the students rotated.  We encouraged the kids to be as silly as possible.  

Look At the Happy Monsters they Created!!