Castles and Catapults

For the last few weeks, we have spent much of our time at work developing theme lessons for the students who will come to our school.  Since our school generally functions as more of a day-week camp we get regular changes of students and dead periods without any teaching.  We can choose our topics and what we want to develop, which for me is quite exciting.  I like the fact that I can develop curriculum that I will then teach, rather than just teaching out of the same boring books all the time.  

After thinking about it for a while, I came up with a project idea: castles.  So, after developing the lesson plan, powerpoint and craft for the class, I actually got to teach it yesterday.  It was rough.  My project, which I had spent hours working on turned out to be too difficult for the students that were attending class, and we were unable to finish it in the time allotted.  After lunch, I had another class, so I desperately worked on redesigning the project, and with Jennifer's help, managed to get everything together in time for the next class.  That went better, but was still rough.  At least this class finished the project!  

My original project idea was to build a paper castle.  I searched online and found numerous designs, ideas, etc, but they all took too long.  I have a very cute little "desktop fortress" that I built to see if it was feasible, but two hours was just not short enough for a 50 minute class :-(

My next idea was to build a siege weapon, like a catapult or trebuchet.  They are also in my powerpoint and so the kids would have an idea of what they are already, not to mention that most kids (boys and girls alike) enjoy building something that they can fling things at their friends with!  Once again, I searched online for plans, designs, etc.  I found many, but most are long projects (some multiple days long).  I finally found a couple that were short, but the first one I tried took too long and the second one didn't  make sense, so I had to figure out how to rig it up myself and make it work.  It's not that great either.

Exasperated and frustrated to my breaking point I gave up on the internet and started developing plans on my own.  Using ideas and concepts I had seen online and my own ingenuity, I developed a crude (very crude) trebuchet that actually does fire!  Materials were one of the difficulties I faced in this development as it is entirely possible that I will have to teach this project to six or more classes a day (15-18 students per class) and the cost per project needs to be kept reasonably low.  

My final project is still very crude, but it does fire and is simple, cheap, and quick.  If I hadn't made a mistake in the classroom when instructing the students how to build it, they probably would have been done in 20-30 minutes.  If individuals were doing it, it would go much faster, but the difficulties of instruction 15 students in a foreign language that they don't speak all that well greatly complicate matters and slow the process down.  

Making lesson plans is both exciting and problematic for me.  I want to make lessons that the kids will both like and learn from, but that are also interesting to me.  This is especially difficult due to my detail oriented mentality, which makes it very difficult for me to do things simply.  I always want to get into the microscopic details of things (especially that interest me), but often can't because it goes beyond the level (not to mention interest) of most of the kids.  So, it is a challenge, and I am trying my best to figure out how to do a good job, but keep it at the kids level (which is also hard to gauge since they change so often and can range from kindergarteners to highschoolers).