Thursday, September 19, 2013

Today was a very busy day!  Not only did we have a lot going on in each classroom, we also had Open House!  It was so nice to introduce myself to the parents and show off the beautiful work our students have been producing.

I started my day in Room 120, the first grade bilingual class.  Ms. Wagner and I co-taught a lesson on critique.  We used the video, "Austin's Butterfly" featuring Ron Berger, an inquiry-based educator.  This video was shown to us by the Cadwells, our Reggio mentors, and I highly recommend it.  We watched the video with Ms. Wagner pausing to translate the information into Spanish.

After the video, I gave a lesson on how to critique.  We then looked at the students' first drafts of their portraits and the children offered advice to each other.  We'll complete a second and third draft- the third draft will coincide with a lesson on observation and the students will have their photos to observe.

Mrs. Chowaniek had the students write "burning questions" they had.  This generated some very interesting ideas for projects.  The entire pile on the right were questions about the ocean or lake.

This is a close-up of the monolingual preschool class assignment.  The students were given black paint and worked at the easels.  They painted lines and then used the back of their paintbrushes to etch lines into the wet paint.

I pushed into Room 102, the monolingual kindergarten, during center time.  I was able to record dialogue as the students created this "Tiger Zoo." One student seemed to be the mastermind behind the zoo.  When other kids tried to add animals, she informed them that the animals couldn't join.

T- What do you have here?
S1- It's a Tiger Zoo.
T-  What kinds of animals CAN join the zoo?
S1- They are all tigers.
S2- I have a rhino- can he join?
S1- No! It has to be a tiger.
S3- Or a lion!
S7- Oh!
T- So it has to be a large cat to join. How do we know if it belongs in the large cat family?
S1- It has fur!
S2- And teeth! And claws! <shows teeth and puts hands up like claws>

The students then looked for large cats until it was clean-up time.

I like the aesthetics of the zoo itself. The balance they've created with the blocks, the single male lion in front.  It's very interesting and seems ripe for a story telling experience.