Thanksgiving With Perspective

My students love doing activities with Perspective now. They will come up with their own-let's do the perspective of a leaf, no let's do the tree when the leaves fall-let's compare the perspective of the leaf to that of the tree when it falls.

I did listen to their suggestions for their Thanksgiving writing assignments. After reading a book about turkeys in the wild (they really are amazing creatures, no wonder Ben Franklin wanted them as our national bird :) . They wrote from that perspective. We also did the perspective of Native Americans from the past and compared that to the point of view of the Pilgrims. I think it's definitely a higher level skill and brings out the creativity they have; while also giving them an opportunity to apply the facts they are learning. Here are some examples (the Native American pics are from Kinder-they did write about it, but I can't find those pics-they made a portrait of themselves as a Native American from the past, turkeys from 1st Grade).

Compare and Contrast

We start using Venn diagrams in Kindergarten. Believe it or not, it's a very difficult concept for my rugrats to grasp. I would for example, show them a picture from the city and the countryside asking what they see that's different. Hands go up-their answers:

Student: They are different pictures.
Me: Yes, but what details are different about them?
Student: One is the city and one is the country.
Me: True... but how is the city different from the country?
Student: They are different pictures.

Whew! It's a little exhausting at first. Just because the kids are already labeled GT and have innate abilities doesn't mean they have ever been taught to think critically before. So we do activities like that often; comparing stories, comparing addition and subtraction, comparing how flowers grow to how people grow. However, my all-time favorite is comparing 2 completely unrelated things.

I ask the kids for 2 nouns and write them in either side of a Venn diagram. One we did recently was an elephant and a car. We start with what's different and work our way to what is similar (because that is usually much more challenging). It was funny in this case when they realized both things have trunks. Our class just finished an activity where they made up topics for each other. One student wrote a noun, passed the paper to another student and then the papers were distributed randomly. They had to fill out the Venn.  Some were easier than others, one had to compare a flag to ham! But it really did get them thinking critically and I was impressed at some of the things they came up with.

New Uses for Everyday Things

This activity really gets the creative juices flowing! I ask the children to come up with new ways to use an everyday object. We decided to use leaves this time but I've done it as an oral activity with a pencil, frying pan, book, etc. I like when we can use the real object like a paper clip or in this case the leaf. Some came up with some imaginative responses. These were my favorites a hammock, a bridge and a necklace:

Reading Response Projects

I'm a very firm believer in read-alouds and particularly reading to a class a few levels above their grade level. I think it's wonderful for vocabulary and comprehension (no pictures to rely on-they really have to listen and visualize). While we are reading a story the students write daily in a response journal, but I also like for them to do projects throughout the story that show an understanding of things like plot, main idea or character development.

Right now, we are reading James and the Giant Peach. This week the kids are making papier mache peaches and creating their favorite scene from the movie inside. I could picture this project in my mind, but was very hesitant because taking on papier mache is a daunting task. Not to mention I have 29 students for reading and a small, already cluttered room-where do you put them while they are drying twice-once with the newspaper and a 2nd time for the paint/tissue paper. They affixed newspaper strips soaked in a glue/water mixture around a balloon. When that was dry they painted the newspaper orange and since you could still see the writing, we added warm colors of tissue paper. When that was dry I took out the balloon (very fascinating to my rugrats)-it actually just comes right out! And they made their illustrations inside.

I just LOVE how they came out. Some of them did a really great job and you know the whole time they were working on them they talked about how much fun they were having-so you can't beat that!  Here are some pics:

Celebrating Halloween with GT Concepts

I have really high expectations for my kids. Call me a Grinch, but my kiddos can't just get away with having a simple Halloween party.  I try to incorporate some sort of educational activity into anything they do. Our students were allowed to dress up for Halloween, so I had them dress up as literary characters. They chose a character, wrote a few sentences from their Perspective (my favorite was Charlotte from Charlotte's web who saw the world differently because she had 8 eyes and it was harder to walk because she had 8 legs, and oh yeah, she wanted less babies :).  Then they used Unanswered Questions to come up with a few things they still wondered about the story character.  Parents were invited to come watch and the kids had an opportunity to practice their public speaking skills. It's amazing how quiet and shy some students appear standing in front of people, when we know they are not quiet and shy on a regular basis!

Ethics

My kids love ethics! I think it's partly because it makes them feel older to discuss such "heavy" concepts. I try to guide them in discussions almost daily that pertain to this topic. It's easy to relate to characters in a story. We read a cute, little story called The Fox and The Falling Leaves about a fox who is just incredibly disturbed that his favorite tree is losing all its leaves. He tries to save them, but to no avail. There is one adorable illustration with the leaf tucked into the bed next to him as he slept. The ending is kind of abrupt and not at all what I expected, but the children enjoyed it.

After reading the story I asked the kids to write about whether or not it is "right" or "wrong" that the leaves fall off the trees. I got several really insightful answers: Right- because it lets new leaves grow, it makes things more beautiful. Wrong-because it gives us more leaves to rake or makes the trees look uglier-were just a few responses.

Giving Creativity a Chance

This month we talk about all the creepy crawlies out there. Do you know what sends shivers down my spine? Walking past a classroom and hearing a teacher stamp out their student creativity. I still remember my mentor teacher instructing me that I need to be more explicit in my directions of how to make a turkey; because some of my students didn't color theirs brown-I had purples and reds. For me, there was nothing wrong with that; this teacher couldn't believe I would hang up such monstrosities. The kids get so used to a teacher telling them how to do it, what colors to use-they lose that sense of creating the image they have in their minds.

Unless we're doing a science activity, where we are recording the details of something real; my kids have free reign over their work. When they ask me what color to use to make the bat, my answer is always "you are the artist, you decide." It might be kind of selfish on my part because I really just love to see the different things they can come up with. After studying bats for a week, they wrote some bat poems and made a very simple paper plate bat cave and construction paper bat. Look at all the different ways they came up with to do it though! How boring the world would be if everyone did everything the same way. I encourage my kids to create something original, something unlike any other project in the room. I get funny looks from other teachers, but at least I let my students' artistic voices come through and if it can come through on a project-imagine in their writing, or when they come up with a new way to do math. These are our future designers, architects, teachers-they should have some originality up their sleeves.