Experiencing a lesson

Today we visited Red Gates school again, however this time, we experienced more than we did before.
In our pairs, we went into allocated class rooms, and met the children and their teachers. We were there to observe the lesson and understand how the children learn, we needed to do this because it would allow us to be able to think of more affective ideas for our workshop as for them to work how we want them to, they need to be appropriate as the children won't be able to do them if the ability needed is too high.

The students are in the middle school department of the school, and our class consisted of children aged 8-9 however their mental ages are a lot lower. We were given this age group as the art coordinator teaches in this department and it made sense to work alongside her.

The lesson started by getting everyone settled into the classroom, and the first activity was stretching and dancing to the song 'Up Town Funk'. I could see that the students really enjoyed this and made them smile, it also allowed them to let off any energy which they have so that when they were ready to learn. Once they finished the dancing and movement, they sat down in a semi circle around the teacher's desk where the teacher had played calming music/sounds which you could tell relaxed the students after their very energised starting activity.

When the students had calmed down, the main teacher of the class (Carrie) had the children to introduce us by asking what our names are using simple sign language and speaking.
Once we had been introduced to the class, they sang a song which teaches them about the days of the week, they associated the days of the week with colour and smells to help them learn.

The students were very focused around routine as they had a time table which they had one student adapt it to how the day is going. This allowed them to have structure and be aware of the coming topics.

Carrie then done an example/demonstration on the kind of idea she wanted the children to follow with their art lesson, however, because of their learning difficulties, the teacher realised that the students might not copy what she had done but at least if they see her doing it, it would allow them to try it for themselves.

We then got our aprons on and started the art lesson. The lesson consisted on allowing the students to explore the paint and colours within their own terms as it helps then learn about having independence. One of the activities was having a spinning wheel, which we placed paper on to, so that the children could choose a colour (which by them choosing, allows them to have that independence) and pour some on to the wheel with the paper on it. Like how Carrie showed an example of what kind of idea she had the children to do, only one of the students independently span the wheel after remembering what he had seen, but the activity was still good for the pupils as they were looking at colours, paints and glitter and deciding for themselves what they wanted on their art work.

On another table, it was covered with paper, and there were trays, paints and objects such as; toy cars and paint brushes, which the children could choose between, and they poured the colour into the trays, dipped in the object they had chosen and then either pushed the cars/brushes along the paper. The teachers want the students to try to acknowledge things such as patterns and repeating something which some of the students had found independently buy working it out themselves.

After the lesson, we packed up the mess as it got VERY messy, and then me and my pair (Florrie) were given a booklet which included all the children's likes and dislikes so that when we are thinking of ideas for our workshop, that we can take their preferences into consideration and also make sure we don't include any of the dislikes as it could make our workshop not go as well as we would want as the students wouldn't co-operate if they don't like it.