We recently visited the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, and my daughter was thrilled that the museum offered booklets for children to work in as they visited many of the collections.
We eventually worked our way to the Japanese collection and discovered a collection of poetry. Visitors were asked to write a poem after viewing the screens, scrolls, woodblock prints, ceramics, and sculptures. They could choose to take their poem with them, or contribute to the collection, which is show in the image below.
A notebook of "Poetic Inspiration" was available for visitors to look through while they wrote their poems.
I think this idea would make a great addition to a classroom or library. Contributors could write a poem and add it to the collection.
We were able to visit Kennedy Space Center in late May. Since I had just finished reading Space Caseby Stuart Gibbs(Truman Nominee by the Missouri Association of School Librarians), I was intrigued by the space technologies, and how Gibbs had enhanced them for his futuristic novel. Three things that Stuart emphasizes in his story that I was able to see first hand: sleeping in space (the characters in the story sleep in pods in the wall), spacesuits, and space toilets (always a student favorite - toilet humor).
Strap yourself in while you sleep so you don't float away.
Spacesuit
Space Toilet
I discovered the term "NASA Spin-off"when I spotted the Space Blanket in the gift shop. It was developed in 1964 by "vacuum-depositing a very precise amount of pure aluminum vapor onto a very thin but durable, film substrate. This technical process forms a "perfect reflective barrier" that captures and helps to retain and focus over 80% of a person's radiated body heat." It is used by militaries, medical personnel, disaster preparedness and relief agencies, and search and rescue groups.
It is small enough that it fits in one hand when you open it.
NASA has a publication and a website to highlight technologies "that are benefiting life on earth in the form of commercial products". This would be a great launch pad for innovation studies.
If you have a chance to visit the Kennedy Space Center, be sure to check out the Space Shuttle Launch Experience, which simulates what it is like to blast off. The best description I head was "it is like driving down a gravel road at 80 miles per hour". Also fun, the Kennedy Space Center Bus Tour, which takes about an hour, and gives you views of the launchpads and buildings. And be sure to check out the Space Shuttle Atlantis Exhibit.
In late May, I was able to attend Project Based Learning training by the Buck Institute for Education. The facilitator was an expert in the field, and modeled not only how to develop a project, but gave us lots of classroom management ideas for PBL as well.
She mentioned three rules of lesson planning:
1. Curiosity comes first (questions can be windows to great instruction)
2. Embrace the mess
3. Practice reflection
Our district's third, fourth, and fifth grade teachers worked in grade level teams to design PBL units to implement in the fall. In the image below, we were doing a Silent Gallery Walk and providing feedback on sticky notes via an "I like" and "I wonder" protocol. When using this protocol with your students, remind them that the "I like" feedback needs to be specific. Simply saying, "I like your project" isn't helpful. The "I wonders" truly help us get deeper.
We also watched a powerful video about teaching children how to critique. Ron Berger models a lesson with children, giving feedback about Austin's butterfly. This is a great video to share with students as a model of how to give constructive peer feedback.
Critique and Feedback -
The Story of Austin's Butterfly - Ron Berger
The Buck Institute offers amazing Resources for download on their website. During training, it was helpful for me to walk through PBLs that other educators had completed with their classes. Be sure to check out the Project Search page to learn more. It is free to sign up, and you can access documents like the Project Planner and a variety of Planning Forms. Join their G+ Community or other Social Media Connectionsto build your PLN.
I love to collect "Gems" - Some from this PBL training:
* Hunches need to collide - ideas take time to develop
* Your classroom should be a place where ideas could mingle, and swap, and create new ideas
* Find the people who have the missing pieces, and that could be used to build and improve your own ideas
* Student questions are the seeds of real learning
* Embrace the messy process of trial and error
* Success is sweet, but failure is good food
* As a teacher, you should constantly be taking the temperature of the room. Who gets it? Who doesn't?
My students adore graphic novels. They require depth of thinking ~ students must comprehend the story and "fill in the blanks" between the pictures and limited text. They are especially attractive to those creative minds that appreciate the opportunity to add their own thoughts to story lines.
When some of my students were inspired by graphic novels from some of these favorite authors, they decided to write their own graphic novels as part of their Passion Projects.
With a solid background reading a variety of graphic novels from modern-day authors, we decided to add a research component. Enter in Scott McCloud's works Understanding Comicsand Making Comics. Both proved to be an invaluable resource to our budding author/illustrators.
Next, we added some fun graphic novel/comic book templates, and allowed the students to be creative. They welcomed the opportunity to branch out from the traditional forms of writing and and work to create original pieces of literature.
We are currently reviewing "No Excuse" Literary Terms in my middle school reading class. When I dropped the subject of Plot Maps, they acted like they had never heard of them. I am pretty sure they have seen them repeatedly in their educational careers. However, since it was one more topic they appear to never have been exposed to, I decided we needed something catchy.
My fourth and fifth grade students happen to be working on creating Stop Motion Animation (more on that later). We had been watching some pretty cool Shorts of the Week as examples. I decided to pull these gems in for my middle school students to analyze and complete plot maps.
The Process:
I walked them through a short Stop Motion Animation clip called Gulp. In it, a Jonah-style fisherman gets caught in the belly of a giant fish. At 1:45, it is an easy one to view, discuss, and repeat as needed. The beauty of Stop Motion Animation is that when you are scrolling through the video, you can see clip by clip progress, and stop just where needed.
The first time I tell the kids to watch and just enjoy. Afterwards, we jot down everything they can remember about the clip. In most cases, that includes the title, creator's name, protagonist, antagonist, a few rising actions, and the resolution.
After a second viewing, we are able to fill in more pieces. During the third viewing, we stop many times and had an in-depth conversation.
While not part of our Plot Map, we did discuss the foreshadowing evident in the video, and the connection some students made to the story of Jonah.
The next day, we repeated the process with another Stop Motion Animation piece called Back to the Start. This one clocks in at 2:21, and is branded content for Chipotle. It is a touching story about sustainable agriculture. It is a more complex piece than Gulp, and a great one to take kids to the next level.
After viewing the clip many times and discussing it, the kids completed a Plot Map. This time, we were able to have a discussion about symbolism in the video, and ventured into an ethics discussion on sustainable agriculture and the environment.
We also talked about how Willie Nelson's version of "The Scientist" impacted the mood of the video. We then listened to Coldplay's version of "The Scientist" and inferred how the mood would have been different if the creator would have chosen it to accompany the video.
While we didn't compare a written text to a multimedia version, we were able to analyze how the plot plays out just the same way it would in a story: exposition, rising action, climax, falling action, and resolution.
On December 28, 2014, there was an article available on The Atlantic called "Cracking the Sitcom Code". It's interesting how sitcoms all follow the same simple formula. It appears as though many Stop Motion Animation films follow the typical Plot Map my middle school student claim to have never seen before...
