Tuesday, April 30, 2013

Community Sculpture


During the first few weeks of school, we set the intention of creating a sculpture that would hang right inside our door. It would serve as a reminder of the type of community we are working to be. We just recently finished it, months later (it is a bit hard to photograph). Working on it slowly over time helped us to revisit the ideas each week. Each of the items was carefully chosen to represent a characteristic that is vital to a supportive community. Here are the children’s thoughts on some of the symbols.

 


“The trophy means everyone is special because we could all get a trophy for something.”

“Mammoths protect their young. It reminds us to protect each other.”

“The sun is happy.”

“The moon is calm.”

“The Cloud Dragon drops rain on fire. The fire represents rage or revenge. The dragon is a peacemaker.”

“The sword means protect someone in need.”

“Bees work together to make honey.  The beehive means work together.”

“The ladder is climbing up to the peace sign. It means that we need to keep striving for peace.”

“Peregrine falcons are clever, fast and work together. A big group of people working together gets the job done fast.”

“The skull reminds us that the Native Americans used every part of an animal’s body. We need to use our resources well and not waste things.”

Friday, April 26, 2013

Forest Data

We've worked hard all year to observe the creek and collect data.
The time has come to start representing.
 
The experience is helping provide valuable lessons as the children think
about what is going well and what they wish they had considered along the way.

"I have the same date twice on my page! I don't know which one is right."
"I have 1 degree on here and I know that cannot be right."
"I lost my recordings for a few weeks."

These are the lessons that young scientists can only truly learn from experiencing it.
Adults can remind the children a thousand times to bring a certain tool
or keep track of data, but the children only begin to care from
an authentic place of wishing they had _________."

Soon we will look at all of our data so see what we notice.

We had visitors tour our school last week as part of our Personal Pathways and Paradigms institute here at Sabot. As the guests toured, we worked to answer the question "How has America's story of immigration impacted you and helped make you who you are?" Here are a few peeks at the children's thinking and representations.
 

 

These cups represent a happy life full of good things and a life full of darkness and struggle. The child who made this said that at first they thought their life was like the dark cup. As they started hearing the stories of immigrants, they realized there was more good in their own life than the child had realized. Hearing the struggles of generations of the past, gave the child a new lens for their own life and challenge. It has helped to reframe the child's own experiences.

“When I studied immigration I realized that we are lucky to have what we have because there are people who don’t have what we have.”

 How does our study of immigration bring a fresh perspective to our own lives?

 

  

"This ball of wire represents a person who is an immigrant.
The purple gem inside is their heart full of a desire to start a new generation.
The propeller represents determination.
The wooden tubes with colors shooting out represent flairs.
They symbolize happiness when they finally make it to America.
The dark veil is like darkness and fright. It covers the whole journey.
The green glass piece at the end is the new generation that came out of this journey."

 "The point of this collage is that without the determination of our ancestors, we wouldn’t be here. The thing that really sent them forward was the thought of future generations."

 In response to this work, another student commented, "I don’t know if you mean it, but the flairs of joy are holding up the veil of darkness and making it possible for the immigrant to pass through. It is making the journey possible.”

 Another child said, “Our ancestors probably wondered if we would remember them and their sacrifices.”

Did our ancestors think of us during their journeys?            

Did past ancestors think of future generations?

Friday, April 12, 2013

Shadow Book



ShadowBookMovie from Andrea Pierotti on Vimeo.
 


While preparing for our school institute next week, I made our class shadow book into a video format for presenting purposes. This format makes it easier to share on the blog, too. I though some of you might like to see it in more detail.

Inspired by A Drop of Water by Walter Wick, this third grade class created beautiful photographs to communicate the simple but profound things they learned about shadows during their science investigation. The pictures and words were designed to share their learning as simply as possible. They prove that there is a lot more to know about shadows than one might initially think.

Photos and words by the 3rd Grade Children

Processing Through Symbols

We've been experimenting with using symbols to help process our reading. In our book groups, we read a chapter at a time and then work to develop a symbol that represents the essence of the character's experience in that chapter. I'm finding the needing to create a symbol brings new discussion to the groups. They talk longer and in more depth than they did before we started recording our thinking in this way. Here are a few examples from our reading today.
 
 In the book The Jade Dragon, the main character Ginny finally connects with Stephanie when the two confide the struggles and secret wishes of their hearts. Ginny has been wanting to be best friends with Stephanie for a while, but has been hunting for common ground. It was this opening up and being vulnerable that finally connected the two. Each was feeling like a fish out of water, feeling different from the children around them. Only when they had the courage to confide, did the two make a meaningful connection.

Ginny had tried for so long before this. What was it that had finally connected the girls?  This is a symbol the children created. They realized that sharing the secrets was what welded Ginny and Stephanie together.




In the book Lily's Crossing, Lily is going through a lot of challenges. Her father went to war, her best friend moved, she has developed a habit of telling little white lies to get attention. In the chapter the children read today, Lily was processing all of her difficult feelings.

This is the symbol some of them created. It is Lily pulling a wagon full of heavy boxes. The boxes represent all of the emotional situation in her life. Up to this point, Lily was managing to pull the wagon. In this chapter, the wagon stops suddenly and all of the boxes come tumbling down. Lily can ignore them no longer and must face her emotions.



In Drita My Homegirl, Maxie is dealing with the loss of her mother to a car accident. Her dad is finally ready to start dating again which stirs up all kinds of emotions within Maxie.

The symbols created by the group are a volcano to represent when Maxie was letting her emotions out in harmful ways by being mean, fighting with her family, being rude to her dad's girlfriend and repeatedly getting into trouble at school.

In a later chapter, Maxie is finally ready to be honest with her father. They have an important conversation about all that they are both feeling. The children represented this chapter with a calm waterfall to show that Maxie is now releasing her emotions in a productive and less harmful way.


Using symbols to represent our reading is something I'm going to stick with. The level of sophistication and collaboration I've seen and heard is deepening.  The children sketch and talk and suggest modifications they feel would more accurately portray the emotional journey of their characters. They are also more eager to participate in the group conversations because they are proud of their symbols and anxious to tell others about their representations. Yay!!!

Friday, April 5, 2013

Parent Night

Parents visited the classroom this past Wednesday. We talked about thinking symbolically and the power of the metaphor to facilitate higher level thinking. Then the parents got to do some of their own work.

"Think about the emotional journey of an immigrant, the journey of the heart. How can you represent all or part of the journey symbolically?"

The children came back to school the next day to discover the parents' creations. We spend time thinking and discussing the representations. Actually, we spend a whole hour looking at them and talking about them. It is more than one blog can manage, so here are a few.




 
Kali: They made green children because they were multi cultural and they had two different cultures, not just one because if the orange culture is its own culture and the blue culture is its own culture, then they are technically making a new culture when you make it green.
Max: Then if even one orange person came over here, there could be hundred of green people because I more orange people come then maybe one of these orange people could marry another blue person. We Would end up getting a bunch of different cultures that you didn’t even have in the first place if just a few people didn’t immigrate. And it all started with just a few people immigrating here.


 
 
 

 
Cameron: The leaves, I like how she used the leaves because if you are like on a sail boat trying to seek freedom …. when the leaves fall from the tree, the wind could blow them away. Just like if a sail ship is crossing the ocean for a certain destination, the wind could blow them away. For example, the Mayflower was actually attempting to land in Jamestown.
Andrea: Sometimes you may end up where you weren’t intending.
Henry: When a leaf falls, I think that means when one leaf falls, leaves kind of spread. The first leaf starts all of the others. I think that means that if only one or two people land in a place that no one else has been before, they can make a whole settlement and make a civilization.
 
 
 

 
 
Henry: What happens if someone falls down the tree? It is like climbing the tree to Ellis Island but when they get there, someone says, “No, you can’t come!” so they fall back down the tree. I picture this never-ending tree with tons of paths and ways and what I think he means by perspective is that you can look down as past images of your life.
Aliza: I feel like once you get here [pointing to the three colored paddles in the middle of the tree] you have to choose which path to take.
Joe: When you get to the middle maybe you don’t have a job but you have friends and you have a nice place to live. Even though you really want a job, you still feel like you want to stay.
Andrea: You perspective changes along the way?
Mason: What happens when you get to the top of the tree? Do you get back down?
Henry: I keep picturing a never ending tree, like it keeps growing as you grow. I picture that the tree is your life… like your fortune or something.
 
 
 
 
 



 
Rose: I think it is really interesting. I feel like the blue panel is when they just see them, the red panel is when they are transitioning and the yellow panel is like, “Hey we can see her clearer now!

Henry: I’m not sure if the panels have to go in order. Everyone has a different perspective. Like what if someone sees them like this [put the blue panel on] and someone else sees them like this [puts the red panel on] and someone else sees them like this [puts the yellow panel on].

Andrea: So you are saying that rather than this person having different panels throughout, the people looking have the different panels? Someone sees everything with the red panel. Someone else looks through the yellow…?

Kali: I was thinking that maybe the blue panel meant, “I don’t really know this person.” The yellow means, “ Oh, we’re friends.” And the red is like, “ I hate you!”

Andrea: So maybe the different panels represent different emotions? Maybe one of them would be a prejudice.

Max: What I kind of thought was that you could have cross panels. You could have purple [puts the red and blue together] . It gets really dark. Then he almost becomes invisible to you.  It is not going to help you, so you want to kind of try to take the panel away from your eye. You want to tug it off.