The Planets and Counting by 100
10:04 PM
After a semi-stressful week that involved my students taking a state writing test, I wanted to do something fun with my class, and I decided to merge two of my passions: teaching and making videos. On Thursday afternoon, I told my students that I wanted to spend Friday afternoon making a class music video. I was a little worried about how they would react, because with sixth graders it's always hit or miss as to whether they think something is cool or lame, but I talked it up enough that they seemed really excited about it. One of my students was so excited about it that she asked to postpone an outing with her dad (that she was going to be missing school for) so that she could be at school. That made me feel pretty good. I mean, it's not very often that you see students ask their parents to come to school - especially when they already had made plans not to!
I was also really excited (like, probably more than my students haha) about making this music video about the planets - don't worry it had educational value! ;) But I was also really worried about the management nightmare it could potentially be in a class of 28 students being crazy and running around the room and treating it like "free time." I wanted to incorporate as many students as possible and I needed everyone to be doing something productive or madness would ensue. I came up with the idea of having half of the class choreograph and learn a dance while the other half designed and created a stop-motion of the planets. It ended up working out pretty well! It was sometimes a little hard for me to let the students come up with their own ideas because I had so many of my own, but I wanted them to feel like they contributed, so I tried to keep quiet and they came up with some REALLY creative stuff! I was very impressed.
Unfortunately I can't post the whole video on here because my students are in it and I can't legally do that - but I made a short cut of just the stop-motion segments that I wanted to share.
I've only done stop-motion once before and I had someone else who was far more experienced telling me exactly what to do, so I wasn't super confident on how to do it, but the end product came out decent - all things considered. I'm excited to try it again now that I know a lot more about what to do! Also, if I had a dollar for every time I told a student, "Please don't bump the table, it will mess up the shot."...I wouldn't be complaining about my teacher salary anymore ;) hahaha.
Without any more disclaimers: here it is!
PS This is my 100th blog post on this blog! And last Friday was the 100th day of school! Time really does fly. Next thing I know I'll be 100 years old! heheh
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han
2 comments
What a great idea! You are such an awesome teacher!
ReplyDeleteThank you so much, Tayler! You know how teaching is - so hard, but it can be SO much fun it you let it!!
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