Our very own arboretum

Mrs. Rose, our Atelierista, and I brought our students out to the land behind our school.  We were looking to find a permanent home for our classroom fairy house.  As we were walking, Mrs. Rose pointed out that this area is just like the arboretum that we had visited at the Opal School in Portland. Amazing discovery!  We have our own slice of wilderness in the middle of South Buffalo.   

The students were so enthusiastic about being there. 

We cut through a path...

Raced through a field...

Discovered a pond...

And finally found the right spot to leave our fairy house...

It was a fun culminating activity to the year!

Nurturing our relationship with the outside world

Some of my colleagues and I are are wrapping up at the Summer Symposium at the Opal School in Portland, OR.   We listened to inspiring teachers share their ideas with us. We also toured the classrooms where student work and example provocations were set out.  I captured some of those images to share with you.   I am so thrilled to share ideas with like-minded fellow educators.  This has been the most important moment of my teaching career thus far.
  
The overarching theme we were investigating was "Nurturing our relationship with the outside world."
Our speaker was Louise Boyd Cadwell, who happens to be our school consultant on the Reggio approach.  It was an interesting change to see her here in Portland instead of at school in Buffalo. 

This is what she had to say:  
1) We are wired in our DNA to connect to the natural world.  
2) We need to make sense out of the natural world with whatever materials are available to us.

These initial thoughts got me thinking.  Some kids have forgotten how to play outside.  They think they will have more fun playing video games. 

I vowed then and there to take my students outside every day, rain or shine for some unstructured time to explore.

Then we visited  the Opal classrooms.  This was one of my favorite parts because it really gave me a lot of ideas and inspiration. One thing that struck me as I was passing through the classrooms, was the beautiful provocations that were set up. What is a provocation?
A provocation is an like invitation to explore. A question and an arrangement of natural materials. An organized collection and an ever-evolving buffet of sensory objects.

For example, Can you make an arrangement (with the natural materials set out) and make a brand new thing that you didn't expect?
Could you create the feeling of being outdoors with the clay and sticks?
Your writing center itself can be a provocation!

Set the stage before an investigation, and ask the students questions.  "What will we see?" "What will we find?" "Can you tell a story with the materials?"

It has been said that everything we make, is in some way, a self -portrait. We learn a lot about children in this way.  Some may say even more than from Standardized tests.  But that is a touchy subject for another day... 


So what kind of knowledge are the children creating?  If you give them the opportunity to work outside, or at least bring natural objects inside, like leaves, sticks or flowers, they are starting from an instinctive place. Nature is a place of comfort for us.  Students can then use this instinctive knowledge of nature as the  platform upon which to test out their thoughts and ideas.  For me, this is the reason why the Reggio approach can work with any students from at-risk to gifted.  We all have nature in common.

Pick dandelions outside and verbally investigate them, graphically investigate them on the light table with yellow tissue paper.
Capture ideas with a writers notebook. Write not for a prompt but for an audience.  
Go out into the world.  The farmer's market?
These are just some ideas you could try with your children.

So what are your children's strengths? What languages do they speak? 
And finally, What can I hold on to from this post?

6.12.14 FIELD DAY at SCHOOL #33

Sometimes you just need to take a breather and have some fun! 

Today we had field day at Bilingual Center School #33.  The students participated in a soccer game, jumped in a bounce house, danced in Zumba class, walked in a walk-a-thon for charity, and ran relay races.  Whew!  The staff was spent at the end of the day, but we managed to get in a faculty soccer game :)

The second grade soccer match

One family has an urban farm and brought in chickens, ducks, a goat and a bunny for the students to see up close.

The bounce house was by far the biggest hit!

This is the bounce house line!

ZUMBA

The students had a walk-a-thon to raise money for Cradle Beach Camp.-

One of my students collected snails outside.

6.11.14 "The seed coat broke."

Something occurred to me today as I did my rounds, observing the students at work: each student has their own "zone of proximal development."   A body of work that is beyond reach for one child, certainly may not be for another.  My job is to push each of the students to the edge of their zone.

This reminds me of the Hundred Languages of Children, which is an idea taken from a poem written by Loris Malaguzzi, founder of the Reggio approach.  Children have a hundred languages and a hundred ways of thinking and expressing themselves.  Let's not take way 99 of them and force them to do things one way. 

Me:  ¿Que hemos aprendido de las plantas?

Je: Están creciendo flores. Tienen muchas raíces. Primero empieza como una semilla, y sale de la cáscara.

Ad:  And (the seed) takes 6 or 5 days to grow.

A student working on a fairy book

An imprint of a leaf for close observation.

"The seeds look like eyeballs."

"The seed has a plant coming out of it."

"¿Qué aprendimos de las semillas en la botella?"

Je:  "It broke and the flower looks like it is coming out of it.  The seed coat broke".

Je's drawing of the plant embryo.

J adding to her bar graph of the plant's height.

6.9.14

Today our provocations continued.  One thing which surprised me, is how enthusiastic the students are about using the overhead.  Since it is old technology, and most children these days are exposed to numerous forms of technology, I assumed it would not capture their interest.  I guess what is old is new again!

"Inside a Seed"

 "Ooh look miss! Raices!

Miss: this is the part that I like about my plant".

Me: The buds?

She nods.

Students collaborating on constructing a fairy house. 

Our students have become noticeably more adept at observational drawings as the year progresses.

Here is an example of research done on the computer .  This shows the detail of a horse's hoof.  

During Math instruction, I am trying to lay the foundation for multiplication in third grade.  For example, I want them to see that 4+4+4 is just the long way of saying 4x3.
Today I asked the students to construct an array of 16 tiles that has an equal number of rows and columns. I couldn't find any square tile manipulatives so we cut up squares on graph paper and used that instead.

6.5.14

This is the first post of my newly established blog.  I have wanted to create a blog for a while now, so that I could share all the great stuff that is going on at Bilingual Center # 33. This is the first year we have adopted a Reggio inspired approach to teaching for the early years of preK-2.  It is now June, and I feel comfortable documenting my student work.

This month in my classroom, we are studying living things and growing plants.  Today's provocations were centered around the essential question, "What makes a living thing?"

Students were observing some bean plants that we planted back in April.  Every day they measure the length of the stalks and add that information to a bar graph.




Here is part of the conversation that I was able to capture: 

Me:  So what did you learn about plants?

Jo: My plant is 24.

Me:  24 what?

Jo:  Centimeters!

Je:  They need water to grow and some sunlight.

I:  And you need to treat them right.

Je:  They need to get air.

Me:  Was there anything surprising that you learned?

Je:   Everyday they grow.

I:   Every single plant grew.

Je:   And they grow a lot of roots.

Jo:  And when they get bigger they need a lot a lot of water.

Je: And when the plants grow they leave their seed behind.

I:   Miss, the bees get nectar from the plants.

Je:  And other bugs too, like flies and ladybugs.

I:   And the wind carries the seeds so they can travel.



I was pretty excited about this conversation because they built upon each others thoughts.  

I noticed how much more eager the students are to share their knowledge with me as compared to the beginning of the year when they were too shy to speak as I was typing what they said.

In the block area, the students are building forest dwellings.  The materials I placed out for them are pine cones; bits of fabric; flat, clear marbles; seeds; and a book on fairies. 

The following is a snapshot of the dialogue:

J:  ¡Usamos este libro para construir todo esto!

The students used a fairy book as their inspiration.

Here is the grass, water, plants and a bunny!

(The students set out green fabric to look like grass.   They sprinkled clear blue marbles over it as water.  Also, they were using seeds to represent plants.)

A:  That's our agua. (Pointing to the marbles.)  There is our grass and plants. 

In the classroom studio, students can come to work on art projects.  I set out a plant for the students to draw and paint.

Observational drawings of the plant.

At the light table, I set out dried leaves, brown crayons and pencils, scissors and magnifying glasses.  The students were working on leaf rubbings so they could observe the surfaces of the leaves closely.

Dried leaves on the light table

                             

Students researching an animal of their choice on WorldBook.com