Today the students were supposed to bring their yearbook cover rough drafts back to school, and from what I could tell, they all did! One boy who I had been observing closely had forgotten his copy in his backpack and we had to back inside the main school building. This took longer than anticipated because the key to unlock the door was sticking and was being stubborn. The boy also offered me a cinnamon mint, which I gratefully accepted.
While inside he told me today was doughnut day and that all of the staff and kids were treated to doughnuts if they got there early enough. While this isn't important to the class, it gave me an important insight into the school's culture.
Once inside with the retrieved "sloppy copy" the students got right to work either finishing their rough draft or with their final copy on nicer, slightly larger paper. The teacher made sure to remind the students of the project parameters and to make sure everything is spelled correctly. She also brought out the previous year's examples again just in case the students wanted to look at them again. Also for this class a few of the students brought their Chromebooks to reference images.
One issue that the students ran into was transferring their rough draft image over to their new piece of paper. I gave the tip of tracing over their original drawing with a sharpie or pen to make it dark enough to see through the thicker paper, but then I also asked if there was a light box that could be used, which there was! Sadly there wasn't enough table space in the shared art/music room to set it up, but the students were more than happy to work on the floor so long as they were able to trace their drawing. Between three and four students were able to use the light table at a time once we were able to push the piano at the front of the room back a little bit to provide more floor space.
On the topic of tracing, the students did more than just trace their other drawings on the light box. One girl was very resourceful and took out a box of various sized circular bottle caps to trace circles for Cougar paws. Other students were tracing roles of tape and other objects to get the right shape.
I think that a lot of the students took extra care with this project since it could be chosen for the yearbook cover and will be seen by the entire school and will be used for THE yearbook cover.
Sadly, the yearbook cover turned into homework for the kids because the teacher is being required to teach a lesson based off of an author that is coming to the school and she is on a timeline. This all lead to a conversation on responsibility because one boy didn't think he'd remember to bring it back or finish his design. These are fifth graders going school next year so I agree that they need to be more responsible. I also think that it might also be because students might not want to color their designs or they might not have the resources to color at home.