Friday, September 27, 2013

120 bilingual first grade- we continued our portrait lesson in small groups. One student finished his drawing in record time and he drew it well. He continued to create drawings- a second of himself yelling, "I win!" after beating his father at a video game, and two more drawings of a vampire.

He told me about the vampire:
     This is the vampire who lives in the city. You can't see him or he'll scare you.  He is real... real... REAL! <said in a scary, ascending manner.> His name is Junior. He likes to bite.

Junior the Vampire

118, monolingual second grade- I pushed in as Mrs. Chowaniek was providing an inquiry for her science block.  She found a huge sunflower on a walk in her neighborhood. I was intrigued by this, myself, and had to touch the texture of the seeds immediately, so I knew the students would be thrilled.

She has some wonderful documentation of their conversation that I hope to add to the blog.  In the meantime, I have photographs of the sunflower and dialogue I typed up as the students practiced their scientific drawing skills with this awesome subject matter.

This is my sample drawing next to the huge sunflower.  I wanted to show how large it is.

This student really understood contour line drawing.

Such a rich find for student inquiry! 

T- Don't just draw a pretty flower- draw this flower.  This flower isn't perfect.
S1- Yeah, it looks like an animal bit it!
S2- It was bees! Bees eat it for their nectar. Bees are not animals, though. They are insects.
S3- They get the pollen 
S1- I'm drawing the seeds. The seeds make new flowers.
T- Do you want to know more about this? What do you want to know?
S4- I want to know more about the stuff on top.  And why the leaves are so hard.
S5- I want to know why it feels like a marshmallow inside.
S3- I know what the stuff is on top. They are for bees to drink the nectar. 
S6- Then they bring it back to the nest and they keep getting it from other flowers, going back and forth and then they make honey.
S7- I am curious as to why it has so many seeds and why it's so big.
T- I agree- I've never seen one so big.
S7- That's why I want to know how it got so big! 
S8- I've never seen a sunflower before! 

Must touch the texture...

We loved the lines created by the seeds. 

103, preschool- I provided an experience on working with clay.  I set up the tables with clay, clay tools, shells and buttons.  The students came in.  I let each child take one piece of clay and begin working with it.  They played, they rolled, they smashed.  I told them they could use the buttons, shells and tools.  Some students wanted to stick the tools in the clay (permanently) so popsicle sticks came out as an option at that point. A few children started to make portraits, so I shared their idea and soon we had beautiful little faces developing in the clay.