An Emerging Project, or a Dud?

So far in this school year, we have not been focusing on any one topic.  We have worked on building our community - an incredibly important aspect of the classroom - and establishing routines as we get to know each other.  We spend some time emphasizing language that supports our classroom community  "kind" being an important one.

Watching the children at play and work over the past few months, one theme comes back daily, day after day.  Babies.  I have spent time lingering over ideas, mapping out ways that I might support this interest.  I have also been thinking about a workshop that I took last year on guided inquiry:  what is the concept that we can focus on that encompasses this interest in babies?  The concept that I keep returning to is "care", and I am still thinking about how to promote the interest in babies without simply bombarding them with dolls and baby things.

We have been visiting the babies in the infant room in small groups; and I have found it challenging to figure out what the next step(s) should be.

I think I have mentioned here that I have been trying to promote writing and drawing - mark making, basically.  The children tend to engage in other parts of the room.  When I first thought about promoting a project on babies, we visited the room and the children drew pictures afterwards.  The baby was sleeping, and many of the groups walked around the room, looking at the baby things (which is a potential aspect of the project).  The second time I had time to take groups, I just took two girls - who are often engaged in "baby" play.  We brought the clipboards into the room with us, and when I suggested that we draw V, the baby, they were eager.  One of the girls who is drawing, B, rarely draws representationally.  They seemed motivated with the baby right in front of them!

There was also a clear interest in the baby things, from the automatic swing to the soft blocks and mirrors.

I have seen these girls, with others in the classroom, explore and experiment with showing affection to babies.  Singing lullabies, rocking them as they say "shhhhh", using gentle and affectionate touch as they play with babies in the baby room, and more.  There was an endearing moment last week when J lifted her baby doll high into the air and smiled big, bringing the baby down to her face to give it kisses and speak in motherese, using a high pitched voice and exaggerating her intonation.

So what does this mean for us as a whole class?  Where do we go from here?  We have an amazing resource for this interest in babies with a room full of them across the hall; but thinking about the concept of care might help find the real interest that lies underneath what we are seeing on the surface.

An interest in construction

Some work in the classroom is inspiring everyone to build a certain tower over and over again:

Since the first day of school, when M made this building, he and others have been making this daily.  There are some designs that stray a bit from the first simple one, and it has been explored with table top blocks.    But the excitement about this structure has touched everyone.

There are pictures of the many many times this construction has been repeated for inspiration, including the original, exact copies, and new ideas.

This week, we got together and had everyone make the tower.  Then, we sat down and drew the results.  Their interpretations on paper are each so different and unique - but everyone has an idea about those parallel and perpendicular lines.

Some children even included the idea of people in the construction, perhaps the builders or just people nearby.

We are thinking about how to deepen their thinking about this tower and expand their ideas.  Part of this goes hand in hand with what I was thinking about the room last week.  I had a few ideas about how to make more room for construction, and how to mix the ideas together.  To support this exploration, I'd like to have the overhead projector near the construction materials, and to mix dramatic play materials into the whole classroom, allowing children to use a variety of materials wherever they choose.

I'm excited about the prospect of exploring this idea with the children in the coming weeks.

the children think...

Three children's perspective on things to do during rest time that are quiet:

Re: Snuggle up! With a toy - a dinosaur toy.I think a little bit of snuggling...that is quiet.

Al: Something to give me. Um, a play toy. A straight thing. Just play all by yourself. I like to play on my mat!

Me: Stuffed animals. I already have a unicorn that's quiet. She doesn't make any noise! How about colorful pencils? And books. We have books on the shelf, and books in the red cupboard.

I asked these children after rest time, "What can you do on your mat during rest time that is quiet? What can I give you?" The children's answers show that they are a bit confused by the question - and that I am proposing to allow them to play during rest time! I am asking the children with a full understanding of the English langugage to begin this process, also, because it is a bit abstract.

I have come up with my own list of my ideas, but the children's may be different. As more children become involved, and we implement these alternative activities, it will be interesting to see how the children's views change. Will they become more interested? Is this something that would be better to not share with the children in the planning stages? The interest didn't seem too piqued this afternoon when I posed the question.

As a next step, I will have the children in small groups of three, and ask them about rest time. What do they like? What do they not like? What do they like to do that is quiet?

What's Happening

I apologize for my absence from here, especially when our project is so exciting! The kids are currently transforming the classroom into two forests -- a daytime forest, and a nighttime forest. We have two more weeks before the winter break, and we will be celebrating our project in the last days before we have three weeks of no school.

I plan on sharing so much with you during the break! There have been amazing things happening.

Oh, and the drawing above was made by a student of mine a few weeks ago; it is "a princess surrounded by monsters". I love her representation of monsters.

What do we know?

On Tuesday we answered the question: what do we know about bats and birds, and how are they alike and different?

We used a venn diagram to chart the information.


Bats:

• Sleep during the day
• Come out at night
• Live in bat houses
• When they sleep, they close their wings
• They sleep upside down
• They hang on branches
• They eat fruit and bugs
• They use sound because they can't see.

Birds:

• Owls come out at night
• Live in birdhouses
• Owls eat mice
• Birds eat worms

Things that are alike:

• They fly with their wings open
• They have a little door on their house
• They live in the forest

There is information that is not always true; and that is all going to be part of our future investigations in finding out more about these creatures that live in the forest. In the forest property owned by the school, people put up birdhouses a few years back. An outdoor education teacher walked with us in the forest last week, and there are few, if any, that are used by birds. As nice as the thought is, if they are in a true forest, they will nest naturally. The bat houses, however, are used. These bats are endangered in Brussels, and it is a move to protect them.

One of the most interesting items (to me) was one girl showing the difference in birds and bats when their wings are down. She said, "bats go like this", and she wrapped her arms around the front of her body; and then she said, "and birds go like this", and she put her arms straight down at her sides.

Yes. This is working.

Planning

This is my planning map from about one month ago. There are many more relevant things that can be added, I am sure, but these are things I have planned for so far. We seem to be zooming towards the "bird"section; children seem to talk most about that, and we began this week on that topic.

Planning maps are encouraged in both Emergent Curriculum and The Project Approach; they are also a nice thing for a teacher to lean on, as following children's interests can really seem overwhelming and chaotic at times. About one month ago, I had taken the students out into the forest to draw once, and we watched a slideshow of photographs from a forest walk once while we did watercolor paintings on the topic. But the children were not bringing up the topic independently and spontaneously in their play, so I was frustrated. Why wasn't the project working?

For one, I had not talked with them about beginning the project, so they had not had the chance to give me their input. We began that last week. Now we all know that we are starting a study of the forest that is literally outside of our classroom window, and we have a lot to talk about as it has transformed so much since our first visit in September.

Tomorrow, we are spending our whole day in the forest, in the Scandinavian waldkindergarten fashion. Another teacher at the school is taking us through the forest to look at the bat houses and bird houses that were installed and are maintained by some older students. We'll do some observational drawings, eat a picnic snack, have an outdoor storytime, and play at the secret playground.

What are your children interested in? Are you using their interests as a focus?

Embarking (for real)

We took one day to recover from our vacation and get back into school mode, but this morning we began our day by saying we are getting ready to study the forest, and we talked about what we already know about the forest.

• There's trains.
• Mountain goats live in the forest sometimes.
• There are bikes in the forest.
• There are leaves falling down the trees.
• Red leaves.
• There is nuts.
• There is trees.
• There's mud in the forest.
• The trees have lots of leaves.
• The little house at the trees.
• The birdhouses - birds live in them.

We have the unique situation of our campus backing up against the Sonian Forest, with trailheads that lead us in. Train tracks run through the forest, and we often see older students mountain biking along the same path that we walk along. There are also many man-made birdhouses, which the children often talk about on our walks.

So here we go. I hope that writing about this project and sharing it with you will help in our success. I have yet to aide children in a successful project; I feel more confident this time, though. We have so many hands on opportunities - all of the resources we need really are at our fingertips.

Happy (and hopeful) election day to you all.

Into the Woods

On a perfect Thursday.