SUMMER ENRICHMENT
In the summer of 2021, I taught elementary students in summer programs designed to keep minds active to avoid the “summer slump.”
LearningWorks Olympic Medals
When possible, I like to take advantage of interdisciplinary opportunities because I believe that true understanding comes from transferring learnings to new situations. When I heard the LearningWorks students in the summer program at East End Elementary were beginning a curriculum on the Olympics, I decided to embrace that theme with a medal-making project. I introduced the rising 4th and 5th graders to Junichi Kawanishi, the medal artist for the Tokyo Games, and gave them a brief history of the craft and the markings still required on Olympic medals today. Using clay and paint, the students created their own medals that celebrated something they loved or felt good about. Some depicted trucks, favorite sports, or family members. Another included a medley of colors to express “all the parts of me,” the artist explained.
Centerpoint Multimedia Color Lesson
At Centerpoint Martial Arts, my co-teachers and I taught a group of early elementary students a two-day lesson on color. We wanted to introduce the notions of primary and secondary colors in an age-appropriate way that would capture their attention and reinforce the concepts.
The first day we introduced the color wheel and had the students separate pieces of paper and fabric by color. Then they took the pieces and worked together to make a rainbow collage. The collaboration fostered teamwork and problem solving. Afterward we talked about the rainbow and how it represented the primary and secondary colors.
The second day we reinforced the lesson by having the students create secondary colors by mixing primary colors together using play-dough. Once the students had completed their color wheel, they made fun creatures out of the mixed dough, making sure to use both primary and secondary colors. Our closing activity was taking turns introducing our creature and saying what kind of colors we used to build it.
Every child was able to successfully label their colors and recount which colors had been mixed together to make new ones. The lesson used tactile materials to engage, short activities to hold interest, and scaffolded projects to reinforce learning.