| |
We measured, we drew, and we painted our life size animals! This is a fun way to learn about the different tools for measurement and to see just how big a ft is, or even 4 feet. Once our animal was measured it was time to practice our art skills and try and draw our animal to scale. We started with the tallest part of our animal and worked our way down. Next, we thought about how we were going to make our animal look realistic. To help with that, we needed more than one coat of paint. Our first coat was the :base coat." This color was typically the lightest color on the animal. We painted our entire animal that one color to start. Next, we added all the details (face, spots, other colors, fur, ect). What a fun way to learn more about our animals! We can't wait to show you our African Savanna at the PBL showcase And a life-size collaborative Giraffe!!
0 Comments
Once our facts were edited with our special purple pens, they were ready to be turned into yellow fact strips where we re-wrote our fact with handwriting that was easy to read! This step is an important one. We are really working hard to make our letters and writing readable by everyone. Slowing down the process re-writing before we do our final draft will help us pay attention to things like spaces, letter formation, and punctuation. Our final step is fact pages to go in our nonfiction books. We worked really hard to re-write our newly edited facts with our best handwriting and to add a picture that would make sense with our fact. The animal groups are working hard to crank out pages that they are proud of and help make a book that we can all learn from.
Our group agreementsNow that we are in our official African Animal group and we know our role, now it is time to set up some agreements for how we are going to work together. We know no one is leaving or changing groups, so we have to be able to get a long and work with the people that we have been assigned to be with. One student last week asked me, "is this our real group?" I responded with a "yes" and they promptly said, "well, this isn't going to work!" I then promptly said, "we are going to have to make it work" :) These group agreements are a great place to start! We will be re-visiting these agreements and adding too them as we see fit. Finding facts and answering our questions about animals!
Learning about group roles!When it comes to working in groups, we get more accomplished when we are in each in charge of something that helps everyone in the group. We all shouldn't be gathering materials, trying to make decisions, and keeping notes! That wouldn't be efficient or productive. We learned about 5 roles that we can use whenever we are in groups to help us get organized and work together. To help us practice and try on these roles, we made a collaborative African animal with a variety of different parts. We worked together to think about each part of the animal and how we could come to a group agreement on what it should be. The captains took over calling on kids suggestions and deciding which strategy to use for coming to an agreement (voting, rock paper scissors, ect.) The recorders were hard at work drawing pictures and labeling on the group planning sheet. Material manager made sure that we had pencils, markers, and any other supplies we needed. The problem solver was ready to help with Kelso's choices if we had any arguments. Last, the organizer made sure our planning sheet got into our team folder and was safe and sound for the next day. Once the plan was made, it was now time to make our animal come to life. But how do you do that with 8 friends all trying to help and a blank sheet of paper? Time to make another PLAN! We had our roles to fall back on and didn't forget about how important it was to take turns while talking and while doing the work. In the end, each group had a drawing of their animal with a new name by the end of it all! Not without some tears, arguing, and kids leaving the group though :)
" We learn together"Our Spring project has a lot of learning opportunities, but I think the most valued in my mind is collaboration. So often we look at students as a unit of one trying to move forward and face academia on their own. One of our pillars is "we learn everywhere, we learn together." I see so much value in being able to work within a group of people that have different perspectives, different strengths, and different academic needs. I vividly remember those "group project days" when I came home so upset about the dynamics going on in my group. Now is the time to start building those skills around how we work towards a common goal with people that may be vastly different from us. There will be conflict, there will be some tears, but in the end we will learn the value of compromising and the value of realizing that my way may not always be the best way. I mention this because as we dive deeper into this Spring project, we need your support. Remember, true collaboration that comes from students working together and not the teacher telling them what to do can be a little messy at times. Trust the process :) We are setting up kindergarteners for their future PBL work at QAE and opening their eyes to the rich learning opportunities they have amongst their peers. We all have something to learn from each other.
The next day, our plan got more refined and we added different components as we went. We came up with having different groups of kids working on different parts of the puzzle (edges, elephant, giraffe, ect). They soon figured out the challenge of some animals overlapping each other and who was going to get what pieces became a problem. They worked together to join together their teams and work together. There were also a few kids who decided that they were going to be "piece finders" and just look around for pieces that each group needed. I tried to capture the messiness and awesome learning as best as I could :) Learning about the African Savanna: past and present
What we LearnedAt the end of the week, we also got a second chance to work on collaboration in a small group when we drew an African Savanna together. We used everything we have learned so far about the Savanna to make a picture with all the savanna's important parts! Again, 1 piece of paper for 6 kids is a challenge! We had to make a plan, and all agree on the plan before we started! Whew, so much collaboration.
During the creation process, the creative energy in the room was amazing! I was able to capture a bit of the magic with these photos, but lots happened that I didn't get a chance to capture. Many students really enjoyed the long chunk of time that they were given to create, add on, and perfect their creations. Although, some students really struggled with this amount of time and how to use it without being given explicit instructions on what to do. The skill of seeing a problem, creating a plan, executing the plan, and having to modify the plan when things don't work out does not come easy for everyone! We had some finished prototypes come home on Friday already! The beauty of this project is once one idea has been created, we start all over again! What is the problem, how can you help, what materials do you need, and then make it!
A few of the problems we seeComing up with an idea to help
Now, what do you do with an idea?
Getting that idea out of your head and putting it on paper, or your iPad :)
Last year was the inception year for this new kindergarten project and we are so excited to dive even deeper into this question this year! We know our young learners are so CREATIVE and COMPASSIONATE about the world around them. How can we give kindergartners time, space, and materials to actually be compassionate creators who make the world a better place? This project is our K team's stab at that. We are excited for you to be a part of this journey and help encourage us to think creatively!
The LuminAId:
|
Watch us grow as thinkers and problem solvers!- Don't forget to comment with your student about our learning! Archives
June 2016
Categories |