Our First Divergent Art Activity

One of the goals I have for my students in the short time we are together is to help them learn how to be more creative. I truly believe that through activities where we stretch our thinking and invent we can foster innovation in our students and their responses.

I need to assess where we are when we begin the year. I do this by giving them a line and asking them to turn that line into something. I demonstrate for them with a circle-what could we make this into? And we come up with ideas of what to make-a snowman, a face, a tire. Then I give them their squiggle encouraging them to try to come up with something different from the other students.

Here is our first one this year:

a hill

If I Were a Parent

Our first activity using Multiple Perspectives is to think like a parent. We read the book The Kissing Hand about a raccoon who is nervous to attend school and his mom kisses his hand so he can have her with him all day. Then I ask the students to pretend they are a parent and what would they do if their child was nervous the first day.

Here are their responses (this is also our first writing assignment for the year):

Books That Celebrate Differences

It feels so weird not to be posting about our back-to-school activities-because we aren't back in the classroom yet. Fortunately a majority of the schools in our district will begin on Monday. A few will begin in a few weeks and unfortunately a few will not re-open this year. I met a friend for lunch in one of Houston's suburbs the other day and was shocked at the number of businesses and restaurants that have not reopened yet. I can't imagine how much that loss of business will hurt-especially small business owners. And now Florida will be facing the same issues.

Anyway, I found a post that I wrote in 2013 and wanted to re-post the information. I am always looking for stories that my students can find themselves in. Whether that is in multi-cultural characters or characters that have quirks and face the same difficulties they face in being accepted. This is my list of books that celebrate those differences!

Wallace has an obsessive need to make lists. Any student who has OCD tendencies will be able to relate to him.

There is a great version of this read aloud with a great accent on Tumblebooks if you have access to it. The moose is born to a family of ducks and tried very hard to go against his identity and fit it--but it doesn't work and the moose is not happy. A great theme of be yourself and you may find your own tribe.

A book of poetry written by a diverse group of authors.

I know most people are familiar with this story. It's read beautifully on StoryOnline by Jane Kaczmarek . The true story of Patricia Polacco and the difficulties she had growing up with learning how to read.

Dr. Seuss was criticized for his uniquely creative ideas. Luckily, he was not deterred from telling his stories and ended up becoming a famous author despite the hardships.

A great story of accepting others even if they look differently than you do.

Imogene has a passion for history and no matter what anyone else says, she fights to help preserve the history in her community.

Your ESL kiddos will relate to the protagonist in this story. He is a refugee from Africa and he misunderstands a lot about our culture. It's also about bringing ideas from your culture into the new one as he saves a local cow because he believes cows are sacred.

My all-time favorite book to share about kids with differences. Melody has cerebral palsy and everyone underestimates her intelligence. I think all teachers should read this book to remember to really listen to our students and give them what they need instead of what we think they need.

We Are Beginning to Rebuild

I know many of your were watching Hurricane Harvey unfold on your newstations-I too had the news on 24/7, but I was also watching it unfold in our backyard. Luckily, by Tuesday of this week we were getting some relief and it has been sunshine and cloudless skies ever since. I am grateful for many things, but mostly that we did not have to evacuate and we never lost electricity.

There are many makeshift shelters set up around the city-high schools, mosques, even a furniture store chain. I went to volunteer today and no surprise, the teacher in me kicked in. I had brought a bunch of books to pass out to the children there and ended up in a little circle doing our own read-aloud. Isn't amazing how books can help us heal! Their eyes just lit up when I told them they could keep the books.

We don't go back to school for another week. Our school was very lucky-only a handful of classrooms and our library were affected. I contacted my students that attended the Meet-and-Greet before school began through Seesaw and so far everyone is doing well. We are putting together a plan to help our school families that have been affected by flood waters.

The generous spirit of the nation has just undone me! There is a boy in Philly selling lemonade to raise funds for us. There are multiple Google pages for principals around the country to adopt other principals. There's a Facebook group called the Hurricane Harvey Book Club where people are reading stories to each other. The kids in the shelter can be read to even with no books. Ting and Ling author Grace Lin even read her book. Friends from back east were messaging me to check on me daily. One of my Facebook friends-she is actually the sister to a friend from high school-I don't even know her well at all offered her home to Ruby and I if we needed to leave. You know how much those kinds of gestures can warm one's heart.

If you would like to help Donorschoose has set up a fund to help Texas teachers: https://www.donorschoose.org/hurricane-harvey

If you know me at all you know my pride and joy is my dog Ruby. She has brutal anxiety when it comes to storms but was actually pretty good through all this. My heart goes out watching all the animal rescues-I don't know what I would have done if we had to evacuate because she's a 70 pound German Shepherd. Anyway, her favorite thing in the world to do is to sit in the front yard, soak up the sun and watch the world go by. We have been making up for our lost time this week!

 

Thank you so much for your kind thoughts and prayers. We are Texas Strong and will be okay! :)

Best Laid Plans

Teachers in our district return 2 weeks before the students. We have pre-service activities almost every day. We talk about planning and curriculum, campus-wide programs for behavior, things like IAT and RTI, we go over the school handbook, etc. I actually went back a week before we were required to this year to set up my classroom. I am in a new room at a new school and wanted to really take the time to go through my cabinets and see what I had before I determined what I needed to bring from my garage.

So we worked hard planning and decorating all in anticipation of the first day of school. Well, then Hurricane Harvey decided to come in and gum up the works! On Friday, our teacher prep day in our rooms, the district decided to dismiss us at 11:00. The rain began that evening and as of Sunday afternoon, is still going. Our city floods like crazy, but my area usually doesn't-I'm not near any of the bayous or water sources that tend to overflow. With this storm however, my street and front lawn were definitely flooded. I'm also worried about my car because the water came all the way up my driveway for a while. We need a break in the rain so everything can drain out.

This is the rainfall expected:

This is down the street from my house:

So we are going to start our school year a whole week late this year. That is a first for us. We missed over a week for Hurricane Ike, but that was toward the end of September. I think the good part about is I'm an adult and I'm already bored of having to be stuck in the house-imagine how excited the kids are going to be to get out of their homes and go to school the first day! Luckily, I brought a bunch of work home with me-like cutting out laminated workstations and curriculum to plan my lessons.

In teaching we have to always be flexible-that is definitely going to be the case here! :)