My lesson at Ketcham

After a few weeks of observing the students and working with them, I realized more and more that many of them did as little work as possible especially in the studio classes. The first period class was better at getting their work done, but more sluggish, quiet, and less active considering it was first period.  By fifth period the students were wide awake, loud, loved to talked to each other, curse, bring in food, goof off, etc. Knowing that I had to teach a lesson, and fearing that what I would try to teach would be totally ignored I began thinking about what I wanted to do and what materials the students would be working with. I was just so scared of getting up in front of the class, talk, ask questions, and hear crickets or the students would do absolutely no work that day, or talk over me. So in order to solve this problem I talked with my mentor teacher. She told me that I had complete freedom to teach what I wanted and let her know what materials would be needed and when I wanted to do it. I chose Halloween. I wanted to do something really fun that would get the students really motivated and excited, especially since it was Halloween. The thought then occurred to me "Why not work with food on Halloween? What do high school kids love more than food, especially on Halloween, and especially right before lunch, and ESPECIALLY since so many kids skip breakfast because first period begins at 7 15 am." So... I began formulating and thinking... and thinking some more. How could I make this work????