RE class report.
Nov. 12th, 2006 07:06 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
rivkaI was the lead teacher for Religious Education again today. We finished up our unit on the five senses with a raucous session on the sense of touch.
I was not as well-prepared as I wanted to be. Next time, I swear to God, no matter how tired I am, I am prepping all my class materials by Saturday night. And getting to church early. Or maybe I just won't have a craft project that requires me to slave over the church's antiquated stove (it actually needs to be lit with a match, each time) in the last few minutes before class starts.
I was trying to mix up material for sand sculptures. The idea is that you cook together sand (the kind they sell for sandboxes), cornstarch, and water. Theoretically, it produces thick wet sand that you can build castles with, and they harden into permanent structures as the sand dries. I was a little dubious by the time I had to dash off to meet my class, but I figured we could work it into something.
We started with our chalice lighting words: "This is the church of the open mind, this is the church of the helping hands, this is the church of the loving heart." The kids all do the hand motions now. Then I reminded them of our previous classes on the five senses, and explained that we'd be using the sense of touch today. I read a great book I got from the library called I Can Tell By Touching, which held their attention well. Then I told them we were going to find out what we could tell by touching.
I brought out a black tote bag that zips shut, and told them it was a Mystery Bag. I opened the zipper just enough to admit a child's hand, and explained that we were going to take turns reaching in, picking up an object, and seeing if we could tell what it was by feel. In the bag were: a wrapped lollipop, a wire hairbrush with a smooth wooden back, a bar of soap, a ziploc bag of ice cubes, a fancy metal bracelet, a big metal spoon, a candle, and a very soft mitt made of fake fur. As each kid guessed, and then pulled their item out, we talked about what it felt like: textures, temperatures, weight, shape. This was a very popular game.
Then I pointed out that we'd been feeling everything with our hands, and asked them if we could feel with other parts of our bodies, too. They thought maybe, but they weren't very sure. So we moved on to the next part of the Mystery Bag game. I asked my co-teacher to turn around and close his eyes, and then we picked out one of the objects (the spoon) and touched it to the back of his neck. He thought it might be the ice cube, and the kids delighted in showing him that he was wrong. We went around and each got the opportunity to try to guess an object touching our neck, cheek, elbow, arm, ear, et cetera. Even the adults got into this one and had fun with it. We talked about how surprisingly hard it was, and how our hands have special powers for touching that other body parts don't have.
My co-teacher took some of the kids to the bathroom while I went to the kitchen to get our snack. A very quiet, shy four-year-old went with me to provide guidance, and picked out some goldfish crackers that were enhanced with Cross-Promotional Penguins for some movie. Leading to the educational snack activity "can you tell the goldfish from the penguins by touching?"
Then it was time for the sand craft. The kids all put on grownup T-shirts over their cute church clothes. I put a plastic dropcloth and some big sheets of butcher paper down on the table, and then I sort of glopped the sand stuff on. It was immediately apparent that we wouldn't be building sand castles with it. But! It turned out to be an absolutely fascinating tactile experience, so it totally worked for a sense-of-touch class. It was warm and sticky and gooey. If you stroked it, it felt silky - but if you rubbed your hands in it, you felt the gritty grains of sand. When you squeezed it and worked with it, it became somewhat more solid. The kids were in goopy, messy, experiential heaven.
Eventually we got the idea of doing some painting with it, and provided the older kids with sheets of construction paper. They painted it on with their fingers, and we left it to dry - presumably, by next week it will have become a textured, feel-able artwork. Washing our hands afterward was another good tactile experience that the kids really got into - they kept up a constant stream of chatter about how the sand goop felt on their hands and how it changed when they put their hands into the basin.
In retrospect, if I had made the sand stuff an hour before class and left it draining on newspapers, it probably would've been good construction material. I don't know if that would have been as good an activity, though.
The whole class went really, really well. The kids were fully engaged the whole time, and I think we had a good range of activities for evoking wonder and exploring the sense of touch. I had a great time, and came home super-energized. I love teaching.
I was not as well-prepared as I wanted to be. Next time, I swear to God, no matter how tired I am, I am prepping all my class materials by Saturday night. And getting to church early. Or maybe I just won't have a craft project that requires me to slave over the church's antiquated stove (it actually needs to be lit with a match, each time) in the last few minutes before class starts.
I was trying to mix up material for sand sculptures. The idea is that you cook together sand (the kind they sell for sandboxes), cornstarch, and water. Theoretically, it produces thick wet sand that you can build castles with, and they harden into permanent structures as the sand dries. I was a little dubious by the time I had to dash off to meet my class, but I figured we could work it into something.
We started with our chalice lighting words: "This is the church of the open mind, this is the church of the helping hands, this is the church of the loving heart." The kids all do the hand motions now. Then I reminded them of our previous classes on the five senses, and explained that we'd be using the sense of touch today. I read a great book I got from the library called I Can Tell By Touching, which held their attention well. Then I told them we were going to find out what we could tell by touching.
I brought out a black tote bag that zips shut, and told them it was a Mystery Bag. I opened the zipper just enough to admit a child's hand, and explained that we were going to take turns reaching in, picking up an object, and seeing if we could tell what it was by feel. In the bag were: a wrapped lollipop, a wire hairbrush with a smooth wooden back, a bar of soap, a ziploc bag of ice cubes, a fancy metal bracelet, a big metal spoon, a candle, and a very soft mitt made of fake fur. As each kid guessed, and then pulled their item out, we talked about what it felt like: textures, temperatures, weight, shape. This was a very popular game.
Then I pointed out that we'd been feeling everything with our hands, and asked them if we could feel with other parts of our bodies, too. They thought maybe, but they weren't very sure. So we moved on to the next part of the Mystery Bag game. I asked my co-teacher to turn around and close his eyes, and then we picked out one of the objects (the spoon) and touched it to the back of his neck. He thought it might be the ice cube, and the kids delighted in showing him that he was wrong. We went around and each got the opportunity to try to guess an object touching our neck, cheek, elbow, arm, ear, et cetera. Even the adults got into this one and had fun with it. We talked about how surprisingly hard it was, and how our hands have special powers for touching that other body parts don't have.
My co-teacher took some of the kids to the bathroom while I went to the kitchen to get our snack. A very quiet, shy four-year-old went with me to provide guidance, and picked out some goldfish crackers that were enhanced with Cross-Promotional Penguins for some movie. Leading to the educational snack activity "can you tell the goldfish from the penguins by touching?"
Then it was time for the sand craft. The kids all put on grownup T-shirts over their cute church clothes. I put a plastic dropcloth and some big sheets of butcher paper down on the table, and then I sort of glopped the sand stuff on. It was immediately apparent that we wouldn't be building sand castles with it. But! It turned out to be an absolutely fascinating tactile experience, so it totally worked for a sense-of-touch class. It was warm and sticky and gooey. If you stroked it, it felt silky - but if you rubbed your hands in it, you felt the gritty grains of sand. When you squeezed it and worked with it, it became somewhat more solid. The kids were in goopy, messy, experiential heaven.
Eventually we got the idea of doing some painting with it, and provided the older kids with sheets of construction paper. They painted it on with their fingers, and we left it to dry - presumably, by next week it will have become a textured, feel-able artwork. Washing our hands afterward was another good tactile experience that the kids really got into - they kept up a constant stream of chatter about how the sand goop felt on their hands and how it changed when they put their hands into the basin.
In retrospect, if I had made the sand stuff an hour before class and left it draining on newspapers, it probably would've been good construction material. I don't know if that would have been as good an activity, though.
The whole class went really, really well. The kids were fully engaged the whole time, and I think we had a good range of activities for evoking wonder and exploring the sense of touch. I had a great time, and came home super-energized. I love teaching.
