Dream+quilt

The Tribes activity that I have chosen to teach in the classroom is called “Dream Quilt” and it is on page 236 in the Tribes Book. The original activity has the students share with a partner a goal that they have for the year. After the students have shared that are to write about or draw a picture of their goal on a paper square. Students finish by sharing their goal with the entire class and stapling their square onto the bulletin board to form a class quilt. The reason that I picked this activity is because the idea of making a quilt really appealed to me because I have actually made a quilt before.

The classroom that I completed this lesson in was a second grade class that consisted of twenty-two students. That morning the students were talking about different types of animals in social studies. After talking with my mentor teacher she allowed me to complete this activity during the first part of the language arts block from 9:15 AM to 9:45 AM. When I broke the students up into groups I had them count off every five students. This would give me five groups with four students in three groups and five students in two groups. After we had done the main activity in groups I had pulled the class back together at the end for students to share what they had learned about one of the members in their group.

Before the lesson had started I distributed boxes numbered from one to five around the room. In these boxes were all of the supplies that the student would be needing for the Tribes activity. The first thing that I did was number the students off into five groups while they were in their seats. This is the first thing that went wrong. After I had numbered the class off the students began to ask me what their number was because they had forgotten. The second time that I numbered the class I had the students hold up the number of fingers that I told them so they would not forget which group they were in. The way that I put the students into groups was completely random and what I found out was that I had one group that did not work well together because there were two people in it that like to be in charge. I also had a group where the students in it were slower and did not really understand or have the motivation to complete the tasks. It would have benefited both groups if I would have taken one of the leaders from the first group and put them into the second group to guide those students through the activity. I then showed the students where the boxes were and had them move into their groups. Once the students were at the boxes they were to remove the jar and to read one of the questions to the group. Members of the group then take turns to answer the question. When the question has been answered they pull out the next question and share their answers. There were three questions in the jars for students to answer. They were: What is one of your favorite activities? What is a dream that you have? What is an interesting fact about you that we probably do not know?. As I was walking around I noticed that on the dream question students were sharing dreams that they have when they are asleep. So I might want to revise the question or explain it to the students that the kind of dream that I am talking about is something that they want in the future. My mentor teacher suggested to me that I might want to come up with a system for deciding on how the students should read the questions. She suggests that either have the group designate a reader or come up with a system so that the jar gets passed to the left after each question. This would cut down on some of the arguments arising in the groups about deciding who gets to read each question. The next step was to pull out the practice square worksheet and a pencil from the box. The students were given directions to put their name in the middle of the square and to write one of the facts that they had shared with their group underneath their name. I then gave the students fabric squares so that they would not fight over the colors in their groups. They were then given the direction to copy what they had written on the paper onto their fabric square using fabric markers. Something that I would do next time is show students an example of what it should look like on the fabric square. Even though on the practice square the information was in the middle some students put their name at the very top of the square with their fact right underneath their name or with their fact at the very bottom of the square. Because I was actually going to sew the squares together their writing would have been cut off so I had to go around and have some students restart on a new square. My mentor teacher also suggested that I have students write a sentence about their fact because some students wrote one word and it did not make sense of what they meant. When the groups were finished they put all materials back into the bins and brought them up to the front table and returned to their seats. At their seats I then asked the students what they had learned about one of their members in their group. This part of the lesson went really well because I did not expect as many of the students to participate who did. What really messed up my lesson was the point system that I had created for each group during the lesson. Once the students were in groups I told the class about the point system and that which ever group(s) completed each task first gets a point. When I said this the students understood this to be rushing through each task so that they can get a point. After the first point that I gave I had to stress to students that it was not a race and that the team(s) that get a point will be the ones who complete each task and work well as a group. Through out the entire lesson I had a hard time bringing the students back for each new direction because I had put the students in groups and they had not really worked in groups before. The students did not know how loud to talk to the members of their groups and when to stop talking when I gave the new directions. I think that the students really enjoyed the activity and they loved seeing the quilt the following week once it was all sewn together. The main thing that I need to work on is the mechanics of creating and delivering a lesson; which will improve with more teaching experience.