Week 11 Reflection

Post #1

Last night, the other Interns and myself hosted the October Family Night at East Park that we have been planning for over a month now. This family night took form of a Fall Festival in which we partook in some Halloween-based activities. Although we were all a bit nervous in anticipation of the event and overwhelemed for the two hours we allowed ourselves to set up, I feel that, overall, it was a great success. Over 400 people showed up! This number includes East Park students, parents, and even faculty. As far as I could tell, all attendees enjoyed each station, with the pumpkin painting being by far the most popular--I witnessed parents laughing and painting just as intently as their children. The costume contest was also a hit, as all of the students were quite proud of their costumes (I have to admit, this was my favorite part :) ).

Now that we have experienced the planning and hosting of such a large school event, I think that the other Interns and I both agree that, if we were to do something like this again, we would try to make it on a night that was not followed by school the next day, as we are all dragging today! In addition, being able to set up earlier--even the day before--would have been beneficial to us so that 1) we didn't feel as rushed and 2) we could work out any last minute "glitches" we may have found. This is something that I would definitely participate in again and hope that future cohorts keep this new tradition going because I can only see it getting bigger and better every year!

Post #2

Because we no longer have Halloween or Fall Parties during school hours at my school, I decided to incorporate some seasonal fun into my lessons for today. To begin, I pulled up an image of an abandoned house that I Googled and used the LCD projector to display it to students. I then asked them to generate a list of as many adjectives as they could that decribe the house. When completing some examples, I did have to review with students exactly what an adjective was and explain that "spiders" is not an adjective, but a plural noun. However, once the lists were created, it took no time at all for the students to construct the minimum requirement: a single paragraph containing some of the adjectives they thought of. In fact, all students went above the required paragraph and created short stories based on ideas from the provided image, which was both surprising and exciting as it is usually difficult to get students to write a complete sentence let alone a paragraph or a whole story. I think what motivated the students most of all was not that they were able to construct "mysterious" or "scary" stories, but that they were able to share their work with the rest of the class as we all sat in a circle with the lights turned down to resemble story tellings around a campfire complete with a flashlight. The individual who was reading not only had the opportunity to be in the spotlight, but add a little seasonal enjoyment as well.