Tieraney G. Rice Blog Post #1: Implementation Observation

Tieraney G. Rice
Blog Post #1:  PBL Implementation Observation

Whenever we have a visitor in my school, the students are always excited and eager to welcome the person or people.  So, it was no different when Dawn walked in!  All of a sudden, they all became a little bit more talkative than usual.  Dawn got a chance to see how we begin our day with a whole group time which consists of welcoming everyone to school, setting up the calendar, and singing some songs.  I had introduced the "All About Shapes" PBL project the week before.  So, this particular week we were learning a song about shapes, and identifying/exploring 2-D shapes.  After learning the song, we split the students into two groups.  One group stayed with me and worked in small groups.  One group made shapes using popsicle sticks, one group used manipulatives of various shapes to create pictures, and the other group used foam shapes to match to puzzles to make pictures.  There were many conversations and discoveries in each group as the students experimented with their objects.  The other group was with my assistant.  She had a cube with a picture and the name of the shape on each side.  As the students sat in a circle, she rolled the cube and asked students to tell her the name of the shape pictured on the side the cube landed on.  These activities the students were engaged in during this observation were very beneficial and necessary at the beginning of the project because a major "Need To Know" for the project was the name of 2-D shapes.  Once the students could identify 2-D shapes, we moved on to 3-D shapes.
Dawn's advice and feedback during this observation was very helpful!