Français Intensif...ça vaut la peine!

By Stephanie Bartlett

How many of you learned French in school and didn't have a chance to speak it?  In our French Immersion program, we dedicate regular time and professional development to keep current on best practice. We want our French Immersion students to speak the language and be able to express themselves from the beginning of their language acquisition. 

We have moved away from vocabulary lists to teach a theme or topic. Instead, we model and practice how to ask questions and how to answer in full sentences across all subject areas.

The results? Amazing and highly effective.

Our Kindergarten students are able to ask and answer familiar questions. They arrive each day with the understanding that they are welcomed and encouraged to express themselves en français. There is designated time throughout the day for support and practice. It filters and carries on through every grade in the school. I always feel a tingle and sense of satisfaction when I walk through the halls and hear older students speaking French with no adult present. 

How do we do it? The answer is given first in a full sentence.

Je m'appelle Isla.

Then the question is modelled.

Comment t'appelles-tu?

The work is done in partners, with an emphasis on eye contact and active listening with bodies facing each other. Our class loves to chat and sing outside, on the carpet, one on one with the teacher, after gym, and during snack. We add new vocabulary and sentences as the year progresses.

Some Thoughts on Play, Sound and Music

By Stephanie Bartlett

Dimples were deeper than normal as Sienna found her rhythm. She and some friends were joyfully banging copper pipes against the bike racks in our school yard. Metal on metal unleashed a joy in her that I have yet to see inside the classroom. Wide eyed, she looked at me as if to ask “Can I do this?” or perhaps expecting me to be upset. I grinned back at her and asked if she felt the vibrations in her body when she hit the bike rack. And she wasn’t alone. Sebbie unleashed a wild screeching noise as he grooved to the sound coming out of his loud pipe. Another group created a rhythm as they sat in a circle and drummed to keep the same beat.

When our parent volunteer joined the group to guide them through a rendition of “Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star” the enchantment and joy that I first noticed on Sienna’s face lit up the face of each small musician. The story is not complete without a sensory description of the sounds within our group. Snow crunching under our feet. Metal clanging sharply against metal. The quieter, more unified sound of pipes on plastic and metal containers as students drummed that seemed to weave it all together. The laughter.

Merely playing outside with copper pipes does not fit into the dominant discourse of mainstream education but it slides beautifully into how to make sense of Life and our local place. The learning arrived in abundance and I always feel a sense of surprise, then recognition. As one child was pulling a pipe out of a bin, he was saying it was “plus court” (shorter) than the other ones. Another child held up a pipe and we talked about how the pipe was taller than him. Music making transitioned into serious building as some students built an elaborate machine, while others built a camping kitchen and pretended to cook for each other.

We share daily experiences together in nature and we are in the middle of a year-long school-wide sound exploration. These two important inquiries are ongoing and we add to vocabulary and concepts as we go along. As an educator and researcher, I take my responsibility seriously to share my interpretation of these experiences and to place them within a context of joy and a shared love of learning (Smith, 2006). In the highly competitive, fast paced world that we live in (and yes, I rush around too!), I am helping to build life skills for students that will hopefully linger throughout their school career. We are nurturing community. We are learning outside. We are making music. We are wondering.

Reference:

Smith, D.G. (2006) Trying to teach in a season of great untruth: Globalization, empire and the crises of pedagogy. Rotterdam, The Netherlands: Sense Publishers

Further Thoughts About Kairotic Time

By Stephanie Bartlett

I don't think you can plan these moments. Or perhaps the planning comes from the very action of NOT planning our day down to the minute. Had I written my day plan today, it would have looked like this:

8:15 Greet students outside, français intensif, songs, check in with each other

8:30 Play outside

8:50 Enter into classroom, flow of the day on the carpet, ABC and numeracy skills

9:00 Guest educator from the National Music Centre

10:00 Journal about our experience, centre time, snack

10:40 Clean up

10:45 Story

11:00 Au revoir

My day plan looks like we covered the social and academic curriculum, we had an interesting visitor and we enjoyed activity time. This is curriculum as plan (Aoki, 1987/1991). But reading this brief sequential description, you just don't know- it is impossible to know- what we experienced. Read on to discover curriculum as lived (Aoki, 1987/1991). Curriculum as lived can be described as deep learning within an authentic context where both students and educators are fully engaged. The topics or experiences tend to arrive from the interests of the group and unfold organically to provide rich learning that covers both curriculum outcomes and life experiences. 

The idea of kairotic time (Smith, 2014) is when time is almost suspended while we live in the present moment. Chronological time does not matter here. For a previous post describing a similar experience, please click here. With kairotic time in mind, let's revisit our morning.

The lingering effects of the orange sun rise were behind us as we ran to our tree together. I know how much we all love this moment of the day, because we all gather together with bright smiles to greet our friends. Part of our discussion and our français intensif, is to close our eyes and listen to the sounds we hear. Then we talk and share. What does it look like for an outsider to see 19 students lying on their backs for a minute?

We moved seamlessly  from this activity to free play. When it was time to go inside, there is never any reluctance. We gather our things and move inside to slowly transition and meet each other on the carpet.

Here, we ran through our number recognition and flexible thinking about math, as well as our alphabet rhymes. This could be so flat and one dimensional as we practice these very necessary skills but it is so wonderful to see how readily the students represent different groupings of numbers (2 +3 + 5, 5 + 0 +5, 4 + 1 = 5) and how their bodies move to the rhythm of our alphabet rhyme. We then assembled our visual schedule for the day and talked about Monsieur Evan who was going to come in a few minutes. We were excited and wondered what he would teach us about music.

When Evan came in, he  started to talk to the class about patterns in music. His "Repeato Machine" allowed him to say a name of one of our pets into the microphone, and then it would repeat to make a pattern. We started dancing and moving around the room as we learned the difference between listening to sounds and listening to how sounds can be put together to make a pattern.

When we began to colour in our own circles to create our own patterns, this is when I heard "I love this." "This is so cool." "Can you play mine?" "I am choosing two colours. I chose pale green and light green for mine."

We said a happy goodbye to Evan and began  to draw this experience in our visual journals. It always seems so funny when a room full of Kindergarten students is quiet and everyone is intent on their work. Max drew his journal on a log. Autumn lay down nearby. Two tables were full of students working quietly and sharing crayons. Angus took his over to the block centre to rest on a log over there. Often when we write, we discuss the expectations and that everyone should write quietly and whisper so as not to disturb concentration, and there is a level of maintenance involved on the part of the educator to ensure this happens. There was no reason for reminders here. Everyone was fully engaged in representing their favourite part of Evan's visit.

Students then moved seamlessly into their play as I met with each student and scribed their thoughts. Even this was different. Focused, concentrated play as students met and conferred at the Smart Board, drew shapes and charts on  the white board near the blocks, created art and built at the tool table.

We cleaned up at the end of the day with some regret, made sweeter by the fact that Ivy had brought us all cookies. We munched our treats and commented on the story that I was reading.

Walking you through curriculum as lived, shows how we covered many aspects of the curriculum today that are laid out in government documents and school board policy. Sometimes magic rises up to meet us and enhances our day. There is no recipe. I could have followed my curriculum as plan and we could have had a chaotic day as we moved hurriedly from one activity to another. Instead, we floated. The effects of kairotic moments reach beyond our time as a class and I find myself floating through the rest of my day long after my students go home!

References:

Aoki, T. (1987/1991). The Dialectic of mother language and second language: a curriculum exploration. In W.F. Pinar & R.L. Irwin (Eds.),  Curriculum in a new key: The collected works of Ted T. Aoki (235-245). Mahwah,NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Inc.

Smith, D.G.(2014). Teaching as the practice of wisdom. New York, NY: Bloomsbury Academic.

Design Challenge: How might we redesign the first day of school?

by Stephanie Bartlett

 Think back to your first day of school. What were some of the actions, emotions and experiences that you remember as a student?

Fifty teachers met in late August with CBE Learning Services for a three-day institute on Design Thinking. Participants were given an initial design challenge of “How might we redesign the first day of school?” The dominant themes that emerged from the first round of ideation revealed the necessity of a creating a safe place, the presence of positive and negative emotions, fear of the unknown, routines, the beginning of a journey, friendship and storytelling.

Our group created a point of view statement to help figure out the problem we wanted to solve:

All learners need a way to feel safe because when we belong and feel confident, we are more able to take risks and make discoveries in our learning.

 Why would we want to redesign the first day? The first day is always a new beginning. Teachers create amazing opportunities and get to know you games to help children feel welcome. Paperwork and information gathering is also an essential part of the day. There is always an element of uncertainty and excitement as a new group comes together at the beginning of a school year.

 As I sat down to plan my first day, I reflected on my values as an educator and as a person. What did I want students to feel? What did I want students and their families to know about me? Community is an integral part of my pedagogical beliefs. To teach a child to the best of my ability means that I need to form a relationship with not only the student, but with the parents, so that we can best work with the child. With this belief in mind, I jumped into my redesign.

 I took note of the feedback I received when I told people about the redesign. Comments and questions ranged from negative to positive as they asked me why, pointed out the potential for problems with separation when it became time to say goodbye, or nodded approvingly, saying that it sounded like a refreshing idea. Not one to back away from a risk or change, I forged ahead with my plans. On the day before school started, flowers, plates and snacks were on my to-do list to add to what I hoped was a welcoming classroom.

The most significant change that I made was inviting the parents into the classroom with the students. For the first forty-five minutes of the day, we mingled, shared a snack, and parents explored the classroom with their children. I watched as they sat and played or drew with their children and then began to introduce themselves to other parents.

 When the timing seemed right, I taught everyone our stop signal and asked students and their parents to clean up together and say goodbye to each other. We laughed together when more students than parents heard the stop signal when I used it the first time. We learned to say “au revoir” and then joined each other on the carpet to read a story.

Having a social time to mingle and share food together created the effect I hoped to achieve. Building on the belief that I want to create a safe and happy environment where students can feel comfortable enough to take risks in their learning, this was the first chance of many to model the importance of building a close-knit community. It is my guess that our first experience together smoothed out some anxious feelings of both parents and children. It felt peaceful and invigorating at the same time and I am looking forward to the beautiful year of learning and relationships that lies ahead.

Project Engage: Living our LIves for a Sustainable Future Starts Right Here in our Community

By Stephanie Bartlett

When five year olds become social activists, what are the skills they need? How can they turn a passion or curiosity into a positive action that can influence society? My students’ most recent interest is climate change. Rather than be overwhelmed by the magnitude of this task, we are working to redefine the notion of community. This work starts with compassion. We live meaningfully and we listen. When we care for our space and the natural environment, we become able to look at the world and do our part to divert us from potential crisis. Climate change and the market economy are real threats to our planetary nature. We invited our students to take action in order to create change in our local community and beyond. Our five year-old students say they can do this and want to make a difference. Here is our story, aiming to inspire others with the notion that if we start local, change is possible.

Kindergarten students are learning the process of planning social action. We recently hosted a Sweater Swap / Echange des chandails for our community at the school’s Take Action Fair. First, we identified a cause that was important to us. We are concerned about the Arctic, so we planned to raise awareness about climate change by celebrating National Sweater Day in our school.

Then, we organized a campaign, inviting the community to donate gently used sweaters.

We spent a few weeks designing posters to educate the school and we worked with the growing number of sweaters in our classrooms.  

We sorted the sweaters into colours and patterns, counted them, and organized them into groups of small, medium and large. Traditional math and literacy skills were embedded in their project work.

 We had parent and grandparents come and teach us how to crochet and knit.

We researched arctic animals and created an arctic habitat in our dramatic play centre and the block centre became a market with booths to practice selling sweaters.

We built the market in the hallway and sold many sweaters.

We even measured the length of our customers’ arms to get the right fit!

After we counted the money, we wrote a letter to the World Wildlife Fund explaining how we earned over $200.00 to help protect the animals in the Arctic. The sweaters that we didn’t sell will be donated and sent to Haiti to be remade into different materials.Through these community initiatives, students are learning to be ethical citizens by caring for our planet and earning money to donate to the common good. 

Project Engage: The Story of How Kindergarten Students Are Creating Change

by Stephanie Bartlett

Kindergarten students are powerful, yet unlikely activists. As their teachers, we are teaching them the skills that will cause our community to wake up and take notice. With their enthusiasm, children may be the right ones to give us the nudge necessary to shift societal values. Our students are leading our school in serious learning work set up establish deeper relationships between school and community, in an effort to reduce our ecological footprint at a local level. We learn through determining an environmental concern, then educating others by organizing school-wide campaigns. We have established a fourth sector enterprise where a portion of the profit is kept for our own sustainability initiatives.  We give the majority to the common good, therefore teaching the value of ethical citizenship. As we say, if five year olds can do it, anyone can! Stay tuned for a series of stories of how we are teaching our students to take action.

Lessons in the Field...of Sustainability

by Stephanie Bartlett

We are creating. We are prototyping. We are learning. We are teaching. One spark builds upon the other as we take direction from our students.  The mission of the Chinook Park School Sustainability Project is to increase environmental sustainability and stewardship within the community through authentic task design. What does that look like? The work is two-fold. We are teaching the global message of recovering and recycling and we are looking closely at our math and language curriculum, using the strings of lights as an authentic experience.

The Kindergarten students began with a simple message to bring in broken strings of lights. When the first string arrived, students went straight to it with measuring tools and drawing materials. They drew patterns, counted groups of strings, and began to compare the length of the lights.

They presented their message, as only five year olds can, to other classes and to the school community at the Holiday Concert. “Recycle your broken Christmas lights!” “We will sell the strings to recover the copper, plastic and rubber inside.” “We will give the money to charity to save the universe!”

One student asked if we could stretch the lights around the school. So...we did! By this time, many classes in the school caught on. For two days, many classes were all engaged. The buzz was different. The questions were real. The conversations were deep.

Finally, all the lights were gathered up and our Eco Club took them to a scrap metal yard. We weighed the lights, toured the facility to see how the copper would get shredded and received our money.

Back at school, the students are asking questions about other metals and how we can recycle them. They need to research environmental organizations who might receive a portion of our profit. Another portion will stay at school to support our sustainability efforts. That is the beginning of our fourth sector business. What is a fourth sector business? A fourth sector business combines environmental and social initiatives with a viable business. Much of the profits are contributed to the common good, whether it be to the community or to the environment.

The teachers are looking closely at our work to document the full cycle of this initiative so that we can plan our next authentic project to link the school and community in their environmental efforts. National Sweater Day is on February 5, 2015 so get ready to turn down your thermostat and put on a colourful sweater to celebrate...

Finding the Math in Recycled Christmas Lights

By Stephanie Bartlett

“These lights are longer than the ruler.”

Listening for the spark, I was ready when it came. We stopped everything and came over for a quick conversation and HG repeated his thought. As I held up the lights, more comments came and this was my chance to teach French oral language structures and vocabulary for mathematical reasoning.

“Those Christmas lights are taller than you.”

“I think they might stretch to the ceiling.”

“Do you think they are longer than the window?”

As students returned to their activities, some stayed to draw patterns using the lights as examples and to count the bundles of lights that our school is collecting to recycle in order to recover the copper inside.

At the end of the day, we gathered around the smart board to ask questions about what we could measure, how to measure accurately and how to make an estimation before measuring. Students divided into groups and drew their estimation first. Today, rather than artists or scientists, mathematicians would draw their guess in their journals before beginning to measure together.

 We thought that we could measure the length of the windows and collaborated peacefully to secure the lights along the length of the shelf below the windows.

Since we were sure a string of lights was longer than one student, we wondered if a string of lights would be longer than three students together. 

Tomorrow, the students will continue comparing, estimating and measuring the length of a string of Christmas lights. Some have mentioned that they want to attach the strings to see if they are longer than the hallway. It looks like one might find us learning in the hall...

Linking Art and Math

by Stephanie Bartlett

Lately I have noticed that my bulletin boards don't look very traditional. In fact, if you took a quick glance expecting a display of uniform work, you will be disappointed.

I am wildly proud of my students' work, but feel that I need to explain the process so that people can appreciate how they arrived at the finished product. It started as an art project, extending over a couple of weeks when it fit into our learning. We learned about warm colours one week and experimented with colour and paints. Next, we learned about cool colours and did the same. Throughout this process, we talked about how to  use the water colour paints, how to wash the brushes and the fact that students were free to paint around the room but needed to be responsible and clean up. 

The next time we pulled out the projects, students were given their samples of warm colours and cool colours. Choosing one as the background, they cut the other into rectangles and glued them on as trees. Branches and details in the bark were added on as the finishing touches with a coveted Sharpie marker. 

I could have stopped at that point and put them on the wall but my goal is to teach the students to recognize math in the world around us wherever possible. I distributed the paintings, and scattered counters in the centre of the circle. Students were invited to put a counter on each tree, then write the number on a sticky note, then find where best to display their work on the whiteboard. 

The opportunities to assess this task are many, encompassing fine motor skills, one-to-one correspondence, ability to print numbers, follow directions, and the list goes on. Some students even extended their understanding by drawing another representation of the same number on the sticky note. I documented by taking pictures, recording conversations and making notes for next steps. 

Students were highly engaged in a rich, meaningful task at the end of the day in Kindergarten and I had to stop them to clean up and go home. That speaks volumes to me. 

A Little Bit of Magic to Start the Day

By Stephanie Bartlett

Although I greet each morning with anticipation, rarely does the day begin with magic. We normally begin our day with about 15 minutes of activities that target fine motor development or skill competencies and then move on to the rest of our day. Until today.  One of the activities I had left out was a container of loose metal pieces and magnets for sorting, patterning and fine motor development.  When the group began to grow, I started to pay attention.

 “We need a screw driver thing.”

“We need wood.”

“How can we make a door?” 

“Can I help?”

“Here, hold this.”

 “We need instructions.”

“I can draw instructions. My mom is a designer.”

“I’m good at this. Here, let’s do it like this.”

 Now, if we are going to look at the seven strands of creativity, these students were touching on many of them without even trying. Collaborative Development, Experimentational Development, Analytical Development, Generative Development were all evident as students figured out what to make, how to assemble the materials and what to do when the first idea didn't work.  I sat listening and watching in awe wondering at what point the work of transforming my practice had arrived at a point where students were generating sophisticated ideas and creating on their own...in September!! 

So far, I think it is the culture I am co-creating with my students. I speak regularly to them about drawing plans and using the writing materials in every centre to explain their thinking. It must also be the predisposition that many of the students bring to the class, and the materials and tools in the maker space that are readily available for such explorations. Regardless of the reasons behind the magic, today I was spellbound and the feeling lingers on.  I got to know my students and their interests just a little bit more today and will sprinkle this magic liberally as the year gets going!

My Story, Our Story

By Stephanie Bartlett

As I think deeply about the threads that I could use to begin weaving the fabric of this new school year, the idea of stories seems very appropriate. Early in September, my pace is slow and my vision is big and far-reaching, in a friendly sort of way.  I feel like I won’t be able to achieve my goals in my Kindergarten class this year if I don’t slow down and pay attention to the story...or the many stories that will create the whole of our experience together.

And so it begins with the self. With me. With my story. That is the easiest concept for a five year old to grasp. David Loy writes that stories “teach us what is real, what is valuable, and what is possible. Without stories there is no way to engage with the world because there is no world, and no one to engage with it because there is no self” (Loy, 2010 p.3). So, we will take the time to carefully and thoroughly create our world in the classroom by telling our stories. I am picturing our morning gatherings. Cloudy, grey morning outside but inside, there is a hush as we gather  with our bodies leaning forward, eyes bright as we focus on the person who will share their story and an important picture that day.The image fills me with anticipation and warmth, and I hope my students will feel the same. That there is no place that they would rather be. 

Once we begin to weave our collective tapestry, we will move into our story. If “ to ‘settle’ a wild place means to create not only houses and farms but also the stories that will make [the aboriginals] a home” then to ‘settle’ our classroom in September means to give meaning and value to the stories that happen in our surroundings as we build our sense of community (Loy, 2010, p. 8). Each child in our class is inherently valuable to the whole and will play an important part of who we will “be” as a group. How we will be together as a collective group? What will matter to us? I hope to guide my students towards caring for our community and our environment yet I haven’t discovered what is important to my students, so I can’t predict what direction this will take. I do  know that we will take care with our story. What stories will we create together on our journey? What else will we discover that really matters to us enough to tell the story? The image of “stories all the way down” fills me with anticipation as I wonder about the different layers of stories that we will discover and create together (Loy, 2010, p. 5). The idea of the classroom as a narrative will hopefully encourage the children to all become storytellers and creators of stories in their own right. All kinds of stories.

Stories are about the process. The good, the bad, the happy, the sad, the triumphs and the failures. Yes, the failures. That is how we learn, develop and grow. It takes the idea of “I can” statements to a deeper level as students fill their portfolios with stories and pictures that document the story of learning and the bumps along the way.

Scrap Metal: Lessons in Sustainability

By Stephanie Bartlett

It began with the spark of one student.

Departing from the typical get-to-know you activity at the beginning of last year, I invited students to bring five photos that defined who they were.  I asked parents to think deeply about the fabric of their family. What were the passions and curiosities of their five year old child? What made their child laugh? What are the stories that helped shape who their child is today?

For the first few weeks of school,  Blaze was quiet and reserved.  I wondered how I could connect with him and find out what made him tick. It turns out that the wheels were already in motion with our photo project. When it was Blaze's turn to present his favourite picture, he chose a picture of a machine with a giant claw. His voice became as deep and matter of fact as a man's, and as mesmerizing as a storyteller's as he proceeded to inform the class that this was his own scrap metal yard and that he had two of these machines. He explained that the machines smashed and sorted metal, which was then put in a container and sent to China where it would be reused. Blaze went on to say that he often went to work after school, and that he had his own office with a computer.  And there was the hook! This five year old child was already so engaged in a real world context that a classroom full of toys and large group lessons had precious little value to him at that moment.  After asking Blaze's parents if we could visit the scrap yard later in the year, I started to think about how we could use Recon Metal as a real, authentic example within our local community to learn about sustainability and the life cycle of an object. I started to ask myself what really matters in the context of teaching the curriculum and discovered for myself that learning is much more engaging when it is based on the real life and when it directly addresses the passions of our students.

Fast forward to April, a few weeks before Earth Day.  We set the date for our field trip and began to spend time exploring the field of environmental sustainability. We began the month by learning about recycling of different materials through videos, literature and discussions. The students explored and played with wire, and different found objects. Students created art projects, storyboards for movies, and books, all of which showed the process or importance of reusing and recycling.

On the day we visited the scrap metal yard, the students disembarked from the bus, donned t-shirts and hard hats and began the tour. We watched a machine load a shipping container bound for China and  watched a car get smashed by a giant magnet. We ran our hands through shredded copper and aluminum, and sorted different metals. All in all, it was an unforgettable day.

But the best part? The next day, when we reflected together, the students really understood the message. Their comments demonstrated a basic understanding of the life cycle of an object. An object can be used, recycled, shipped somewhere else and created into something new, like a new toy car, for example. And that is the bottom line when we are teaching a new generation to care for our planet and our future.

Looking Closely at Student-Owned Documentation

by Stephanie Bartlett

A big part of my journey this year has been exploring documentation panels.  Inspired by the many talented educators on twitter, I have read, thought, researched, reflected...and the cycle repeats.  I take photos and videos and must admit that I am still figuring out a process to post the photos in the classroom in a timely manner.  (I would appreciate any techniques from those well versed in the world of documentation panels.)

The other day, I printed the photos of our coconut explorations. I thought that if Hunter cut out the pictures, and we explained them together, then the panel would be meaningful to him rather than the parents coming for conferences as had been my original intention. He got some fine motor and sequencing practice cutting and ordering the pictures before we got ready to document the story.

I settled in with sticky notes and proceeded to be amazed at what I learned from Hunter. I thought he would label each event in each picture.  Instead, Hunter labelled the steps of collaboration. The first step was Hunter finding the coconut and exploring on his own. The second group of pictures was when Erik came to join him, the third was the class (spelled phonetically KSE) and the fourth was the opening of the coconut. 

Together we reflected on the different questions that he had been asking and I scribed those underneath.  The message had come through loud and clear for me and I was thrilled: collaborative development is an integral part of creativity in educational practice.  Hunter showed me in his own words that collaboration has been embedded in our classroom culture.

There is an important place for teacher-directed documentation panels to explain our programs to adults, and to celebrate the learning of our students by showing the thinking process.  Dylan William states in his book  Embedded Formative Assessment that "teachers have a crucial role to play in designing situations in which learning takes place, but only learners create learning." (William 158)  I provided the learning provocation and then the pictures; Hunter responded with a high level of engagement and showed me how students can help manage their learning process.  It is now up to me to take everything Hunter shared with me to help design new learning experiences for him and the class. 

Citation:

William, Dylan (2011.) Embedded Formative Assessment. Bloomington, IN: Solution Tree Press

Coconut Tales: Looking Closely At One Student's Spark

By Stephanie Bartlett

Hunter discovered a coconut in our Looking Closely centre.  He spent activity time looking closely, listening to the water inside, wondering and drawing in his journal.  "I wonder how we can crack this open?" He is a collaborative guy, so he quickly found a friend to share his discovery.  The group began to grow and our class discussion at the end of the day was all about whether we could open the coconut the following day and how we might do that.

The next day, I had my tools ready: screw driver and hammer to open the coconut in a fairly teacher-directed fashion.  Sure enough, a gang of them headed towards the unsuspecting coconut, each armed with scissors. The snippets of excited discussion I heard were the very things that I had been teaching all year.  They were talking, wondering, figuring out how to open the coconut and all the while, finding ways to listen and work together. I stopped the whole class and quickly told them there were some people who wanted to crack the coconut.  I asked everyone to just drop their toys, grab their journal and draw how they thought we might open it.  

Next we all gathered around the table.  When I turned back from gathering my tools to demonstrate how to do open our treasure, I saw that Rowan (who had just returned from a five month stay in Maui) grabbed the coconut, and used his scissors like a screw driver in one of the holes, saying "Let me do this. I used to open these every day."  What empowerment for a student who is working hard to return to routine, school, all the while learning a new language! There was no need for me to be there, so I quietly hung back and let him run the show.  

The conversation turned to excitement about the water inside. "What will it taste like?" "Can we try it?" Like a surgical assistant hoping to be helpful, I grabbed our class set of cups and suggested that everyone pour two shakes in so that they could all try the water.  So fun! And then...after some French oral language activities because I need to get them talking as much as I can...we counted to three and tried the coconut water.  "Eeeewwwww!" "Gross!" 

The last step was to graph who liked the taste and who did not.  We ended the day chanting "Je n'aime pas l'eau de coco!" 

This activity was made possible by a provocation that sparked the curiosity of one student. Then, he shared his interest and collaborated, all the while generating ideas on how to open the coconut.  Students then caught the spark and drew a plan.  This gave them an opportunity for authentic writing, then math and oral language skills.  Listen carefully to your students, teach them to wonder, question and investigate and offer provocations that will allow their curiosity to spark.  To me, this is a joyful way to teach and the results always astound me. What examples do you have that highlight student engagement?