Creative Problem Solving

I just got back from my first real day of teaching Mrs. Findlay's second grade class!  You'll have to excuse me, I'm on a bit of a teaching high.  After a good class, I come back excited and loving life.  And . . . today was a great class! :) 

Today, I used the book "The Fool and the Phoenix" by Deborah Nourse Lattimore as a foundation for a lesson on creative problem solving.   Behavioral Objective: "The students will understand how literature is often built around problems characters face and the subsequent solutions/resolutions.  Students will also demonstrate creative problem-solving and apply these themes to reality." (See CDLP Problem Solving)

I thought this was a great lesson to begin with in order to introduce the idea of creativity - we will use it constantly throughout the rest of my visits and it will be important to have a common understanding on what that actually means to me as the teacher and to each student as an individual responsible for investing in self-expression.  The lesson went well and the students were really concentrating on what was happening.  We had a great discussion to end the lesson about the problems we each face in our own lives.   They shared ideas on how to creatively solve those problems and decided that sometimes, that simply means "keep trying" or "try it in a different way."  They really seemed to grasp the concepts we were discussing and of course, we had lots of fun.

This class tends to be a little chatty - Mrs. Findlay tells me that they've all grown up together and are a really close-knit group.  They are all great friends; it's actually really sweet to see them interact.  (One student accidentally ran into another while hopping enthusiastically; he walked her up to me, told me it was his fault and stayed while I made sure she was okay.)  I love to see them get excited though - most of it was squeals of excitement or grunts of concentration (climbing over huge invisible logs is really hard.)  However, dance is first and foremost a language of the body.  I will work on helping them learn that it is okay to communicate in ways other than vocalizing and increase the range of kinesthetic communication.  There is already a good foundation there - when I asked if it's possible to communicate in ways other than using our voices, the entire class immediately nodded and showed me some sign language.  It was wonderful! 

Something I want to personally work on is familiarizing myself even more fully with the lesson plan in advance so I don't feel like I need to keep checking it to keep myself on track.  It's a personal trait of mine as a teacher that I like to really stick with my lesson plans since I tend to find flow better while writing than speaking.  This isn't necessarily a bad thing, but if I haven't taught the lesson a few times before, this means that I want to keep it close and check it often.  I don't want that to hinder the momentum of the classroom or my perception as a teacher, so I'll practice the lessons beforehand.  Yay, Me!

Favorite moment(s) of the day:

1. Several of the comments students gave during discussions we had were very insightful and exactly what I was hoping they would understand.  It was so fulfilling to really see them grasp the ideas and apply them in different fields.
2. After we had finished up the lesson and headed back to the classroom, the students were moving on to the next activity, busily getting games they had brought from home to be able to play for a reading goal reward.  One girl came up to Mrs. Findlay and asked if she should do something one way or another and Mrs. Findlay looked back at her and said, "I don't know.  That's a problem you can solve on your own."  The girl smiled and nodded and I would daresay that she just went ahead and solved it. :)

 All in all, it was a great start to a great experience and I can't wait to go back next week!