Coming back mid year from my maternity leave was bittersweet! I was very excited to get back into teaching but pretty sad about leaving my little one behind. This was my "beginning of year" so I knew I needed to do some sort of getting to know you project that was unique and different than anything I had done before! I decided to do a project that incorporated different things that I had been wanting to try out with my students. As I was planning for teaching my upcoming science unit on Mixtures and Solutions, I began watching the FOSS teacher demonstration lesson on Chemical Reactions (Part 1) and something in the background of this video caught my eye. The teacher had these very intriguing looking silhouettes on the wall of the students and I immediately knew this was something I wanted to try out! I ALSO had come across this awesome blog called, "Everybody is a Genius".
She has these AMAZING multiple intelligences surveys that I thought would be PERFECT to use in order to get to know my students. (I actually bribed my mom to take this before I gave it to my students so that I would have the example to the right, thanks MOM!) These surveys contain pretty challenging vocabulary for 5th graders so the students went through these in partners so that they could highlight and discuss any challenging words that came along. The surveys had 8 sections and revealed if they had strengths in: Naturalist, Musical, Logical, Visual, Interpersonal, Kinesthetic, Verbal, or Intrapersonal areas. The next step was my FAVORITE! The students graphed their results so that they could get a better visual of their results. They colored their graphs and then looked to see which careers were listed under their category. Next, they chose 3 careers that appealed to them and then wrote a short "reaction" about their results that they glued onto their silhouettes.
Now it was time to draw the silhouettes! I turned the lights off and used my projector's light to shine onto the whiteboard. After taping up a 16 x 22 piece of white construction paper I had each student stand just in front so that their shadow displayed and I was able to trace their profile.
The students cut out their profile, glued to black construction paper and used magazines to cut out pictures that they felt represented them. For added detail, students drew small pictures that revealed things about their personalities. Finally they cut out "character traits" from lists I had printed out so that their silhouettes would be more descriptive. (I will add these lists as a free download as soon as I can get them together!) Check out the pictures to see the finished products!
This is so neat! I bet your students absolutely LOVED this activity - allowing them to "showcase" a bit of themselves for others. I'm betting this is one of those activities that your students will remember as adults... :)
ReplyDelete~Deb
Crafting Connections
First of all, congratulations on the newest member of your family! I think this is a great post. You allowed your students to find out where their strengths are. This will enable them to know themselves more, focus on the areas they are good at, and improve on their weaknesses. Great job!
ReplyDeleteSarah Haskins
Love it! Thanks for posting! Silhouettes are truly a great way to decorate the classroom or anywhere. I recently bought some wall silhouettes (safari animals) from www.LifeSizeSilhouettes.com to dress up my boy's room. Not that expensive and what a difference! I was really pleased with them. Keep up the good ideas!
ReplyDeleteLove this!! Did you ever add the link to the free download you were talking about? Thanks!
ReplyDelete