The Last Before The First

            Thanks to Stacey, Tara, Dana, Beth, Anna and Betsy and all this blogging community for the Tuesday Slice of Life!  Looking forward to the SOLSC, and this time with my class!

          I'm one of the concierges for the Classroom Slice of Life, with Margaret Simon of Reflections on The Teche. Please ask questions if you need help! I'm getting ready, my assistant at JK's Slice of Life (first time slicing today), my students are, too and my colleague, Max, of Teaching From Behind.  We.Are.Excited! I hope you are, too, and will join us! My students would love to connect with yours. We're in Denver, Colorado, happy to meet others all over the world!

             My time this week will be filled with questions because students are selecting their new units for the rest of the year. My school supports each student in choosing a specific unit (oldest students choose more) and the teacher builds the curriculum for that student around the choice. Today we began. We not only work on content and great questions, but interesting and innovative products in which to communicate our answers. The big questions from me: What will you ask of your topic? And what product type might you want to practice/learn about?

SOLC Is Coming!

              Thanks to Stacey, Tara, Dana, Beth, Anna and Betsy for this Tuesday Slice of Life!  

Tweet at #sol15

          The SOLC is coming; the SOLC is coming. That Two Writing Teachers "gang" have begun to write about prizes and volunteers. Time to start the back of the brain thinking! And that means I'd better be making my lists of what, or maybe how, who, when, why, and where!

Finding Out More - 21 of 31

The March Slice of Life Challenge-
                            Thanks to Ruth and Stacey, at Two Writing Teachers - 21 of 31

Tweet at #Slice2013

          Many of you know that students at our school study individual topics, and that they go on trips outside school with trip teachers to visit sites particular to those topics.  Sometimes that means interviewing an expert in the field.  
            When preparing for trips, one of the challenges is to help students learn how to interview.  I've been asked to work with five seven and eight year old girls to practice their interviewing skills.  They have chosen unit topics that will mean that much of their information will come from interviewing experts.  While they are all gifted readers, much of the topic texts are complex.  Examples of these topics are Bees, Pollination and Colony Collapse; Sensory Integration and Dyslexia; and World War Two Weapons.  

Expo Has Come and Gone - Here's A Taste

Slices of Life on Tuesdays Are Hosted by Stacey and Ruth 

at the Two Writing Teachers Blog

My school’s Expo was held last Thursday.  Excitement permeated the school in interesting ways in the days before.   It’s always interesting to me that while the getting ready for the crowds holds challenges for everyone; the days before the event are calm, with students so focused on finishing their displays that it is eerily quiet in the school.  As I explained in a post a few weeks ago, each student studies an individual topic around which the curriculum is written.  Expo is a day and evening of celebration of the learning thus far for the year, with displays of products completed by each student.   

The ways in which my school works is a difficult thing to explain in a few sentences, but in my many years’ experience here I believe much of the approach to learning has to do with questions.  I thought I would share the beginnings of the school year with students and what I’ve asked them to do with me as their teacher.  Each teacher might do this in a slightly different way, but the basics are the same, all having to do with questions, the answers discovered by both the student and the teacher:  What are possible topics of interest?  Why?  What would you like to increase your skill in?  What are your strengths?  What might be challenges for you in these strengths?  Where are your areas of weaknesses?  What might be some ways you can improve these?

I realize that these are sophisticated questions for very young students, yet their teachers follow similar paths to discovery.  They are the questions I asked my middle school students, who answered them through beginning research of their unit topic choices, through several conferences with me, and often through talks with their parents.  No matter what the age, they are their ‘wonderings’ about something.  I have been lately interested in reading about teachers who are exploring the site Wonderopolis because the site mirrors the goal of my school for its students, to find topics to wonder about and to pursue deeper learning within that topic. 

After deciding on the topic, and answering some of the questions, a unit of expectations is written by the teacher for each student with input from the student.  Weekly assignments are derived from that unit as the student’s weekly goal.   The intent of the questions remains the same, but the ways they are asked depend on class levels and with each child.  Teachers assess constantly by observing what a student is communicating through the work and through conferring often.  A path may start one way and then veer another depending on new information learned and the needs and interests of the student.  It is complex, but encompasses all that is being discussed as inquiry and/or project based learning.  Students are motivated when they have choice, and Expo is a celebration of the results of their learning choices. 

I’ve included a slide show of examples of displays from all the classrooms.  Some of the photos show students in process of completing the work and some few show visitors.  I didn’t include the crowded evening with parents, grandparents, neighbors, but at that time, the classrooms and halls are filled with those interested in visiting as many displays as possible and learning about the topics themselves.

 I visited all day Thursday, asking questions as the students played host to their displays, and taking pictures of representations of the work.  It was hard to choose what to show.  Over 250 topics have been researched.  My mind was swirling as I ended the day, full of questions of my own about certain topics.  It is a satisfying celebration of work well done. 

Next, students will continue on their journeys with the same topics or will choose another topic of inquiry for the remainder of the year.  Lifelong learning is a continuing journey we want all our students to enjoy.  Please take a look at some of the photos.  There are many, but I wanted to include some from all the ages, five through fourteen.  

Slide Show - Expo