"then, somebody created sound"

Our 4-page movie story called "Ladybug on a Bike" - with flashlight and popcorn!

Project based work makes each school year unique and exciting.

One year, we went on a fabulous journey in our Movie Theatre Project.

Stage One:

Teachers and children identify a topic worth studying.

In this case, the children realized that two of our chapter book read-aloud books were also movies they knew about: Charlotte's Web & Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. This began our discussion around how books become movies and how movies can show you a story a bit different than a book.

Stage Two:

Collecting data.

We planned a visit to our local independent Theatre. The workers there were wonderful to allow us to come during a morning time when we could have the theatre to ourselves. We generated a list of questions that we would ask and brought our camera.

Here are some of the things we learned, via photos and children's memory drawings:

Stage 3:

Exploration and re-enactment.

We created our own Movie Theatre in our classroom, under our loft. We worked in groups to create large story pages and then made up our own story as a whole class. Our biggest hit was "Ladybug on a Bike" !

We studied newspapers to see how movies are promoted.

We made signage, collected items from home to create uniforms, snack area, and used time and money in our signs and announcement.

We invited other classes of students to visit our theatre, hear our movie which was told live by a student for each show, and popcorn was really "sold" to our guests.

Stage 4: Celebration.

We invited our families to come in and hear the process of our project, to "hear" our movie and to have a feast to celebrate the rich learning of the three-month Movie Theatre Project.

Don't you love how books become movies?

draw what you see

drawing a pencil with a pencil...have YOU tried that???

"drawing
is like
taking
a line
for
a
walk..." (klee).


Art is how you feel, what you touch, what touches you.

colors, lines, shapes.

eyes, hands.

you.
you are the art.








We offered the idea of Still Life art with our 4s and 5s. This process is something that works well after a length of time in your classroom (months even) where children have had extended choice time with art materials, exploring, inventing, using Stuff, using Stuff again and again, discovering a sense of being an artist.

The idea of Still Life can be really fun for children. We talked about how art is YOUR CHOICE and WHAT YOU SEE. We talked about how in Still Life artists often try to represent what something really looks like, exactly, yet  - ironically - the art work always depends on YOU, The Artist, and how YOU see something.

We talked about

• details
• looking again and again
• color
• shape
• curves and line
• size and spatial sense
• going slow so your eye and your hand can work like a team !

In our First Work the children chose anything in the classroom for their Still Life drawing. This is a wonderful way of engaging children because - no surprise - they will be more connected to their work when they have choice and ownership. The choices of items themselves were a delight to see - who would have known that someone wanted to try to draw a cell phone? a dinosaur skeleton? blocks stacked just so? or a pair of Fiskar scissors?

**[my apologies for the less-than-fabulous photos as these are photos of photos...I think they still offer a strong sense of the quality of the children's efforts].

The second experience with Still Life was outside among our big trees and flowering hills of our school yard. The children used clipboards, chose whatever they wanted to draw, sat where they chose to sit to observe their "still life" and dove into their work.

Outside with clipboards...trees, flowers, drawing close-up and drawing far away...

The third experience with Still Life was with a classic vase of flowers. These were challenging and beautiful! We presented the group with the same item - the vase of flowers -  yet their different perspectives allowed each art work to be as though they had their own vase.

"Drawing is like taking a line for a walk..."(and who doesn't enjoy a lovely walk?)

Go. Take a walk with your children:
Draw what you see.

the dinosaur that might be dead

It was a surprise - this "dinosaur that might be dead" - a big surprise.
It was a gift on many levels.
The exploration that occurred on this day literally changed my teaching.

"we need to figure out what happened to this skull...!"

It changed how I understood, introduced and valued materials.
It changed how I understood children's engagement with materials as the children seamlessly integrated rich role playing within an exciting scenario that lasted for many days and included many other children.

Also, it became the spin off point for my masters thesis in graduate school (no worries, won't share that whole thing here! :)

Here's the Very True Story of "The Dinosaur That Might Be Dead" :

It was bigger than an Aha! moment that comes along in teaching. I stood frozen for just a few seconds until I realized that this event that was just beginning to unfold in front of me was going to be special. Sometimes you just know. There was energy present among these 4-year-olds that I knew would bring something beyond unique or amusing as they began to engage with the science materials.

Without saying a word, their actions were telling me "Look at this! Look at us! We are teaching you right now. We are giving you a gift." (and they were!).

Starting to examine the skull with shells and magnifiers.

In the science area in our 4s/5s classroom, all the exploration tools and equipment are available for the children to use as they wish. 

I usually have introduced the different materials in large group so that children have some sense as to how they might engage with them, yet they can discover new ways on their own.

One particular day, I introduced a deer skull - teeth, bones, cracks and all. I shared with the children how a family had given this skull to our Room 5 classroom many years ago. The family had found it at their grandparents farm as they went on a walk way back behind their barn. They thought we might like to use it to further our then-study of fossils and bones.

I offered to the children, "It seems that bones are pretty interesting for children to investigate. If you would like to plan to work in Science today, perhaps you'll be able to make some new discoveries about the skull."

Three children - Cara, Lucas and Nolan - all planned to work in the Science Area.
"We want to use the deer skull," they each said to me.

The three children took the deer skull to an open table...
then the children turned around and proceeded to take out everything else from the Science shelves, as well, and bring it all to the table. 
They had kaleidoscopes, magnets, shells, pinecones and magnifiers.
"Oh, yes," Lucas says to me, "we need everything so we can figure out what happened to this skull!" Claire and Nolan agreed quickly and spread all their equipment out. I sat nearby to listen to their discussion as the 'examination' of the deer skull began. 


The children used

• shells to tap into small gaps of the skull.
• magnifiers for all areas of the skull, especially to examine the cracks which they quickly pronounced as quite important to whatever happened to the skull
• magnets were slipped into the eye holes
• kaleidoscopes were used for looking at teeth

While all three children used the equipment in unique ways to examine the skull, the dialogue between the children was lively, creative and quite dramatic.

The children turned themselves into Doctors of various kinds - "I am the Doctor Wizard,", "I am the Doctor Princess" and "I am the Doctor of Bones." 

The children agreed that they were not dealing with just a deer skull, but actually
 A DINOSAUR THAT MIGHT BE DEAD!

More friends examine the "dinosaur that might be dead" with kaleidoscopes, magnifiers, water/oil blocks, and shells

Cara: We are going to make him back alive!

Lucas: I am checking the eye and the nose...

C: It is getting worse!

Nolan:  I think we should check his head! There might be a rock in there or something!

C: His brain is not thinking - that is wrong!

N: It is getting worse!

C, N, L: We must check his eyes and his nose again!

N: There is an infection on his horns!

C: We have to wash his eyes to make him alive! Or he might have to stay in heaven forever...

L: I think he needs some medicine!

C: We have to help him die, that is the only way!

N: We need kaleidoscopes to help him!

L: Yes!

N: Uh-oh, he is getting power in his nose, there must be a lizard nearby! Maybe he swallowed a snake or a lizard!

N: Come on, we got to do this fast, no time to talk, he is getting worse fast!

C: He is going to die!

L: Inside is really bloody now...

N: Uh-oh, he is cracking more...

L: I need to wash his teeth...

N: Yes, that will take away the cracks.

C: No, no, no, something else was happening. I think the snake killed him with his teeth...

N: ...with his tongue!

C: He has killers in his teeth, that means he is really dangerous!

N: Like a boa constrictor!

L: No, a rattle snake, no a rattle scorpion, or a dinosaur!

N: It was a rattle snake because they are dangerous, very dangerous. They live in the desert. This is very serious. Hey, both the scorpion and the snake live in the desert, maybe they both killed him...!

N: This is a big discussion we are having!

L: We need to kill him or else he will kill the whole world!

N: This is serious, way serious. Maybe he got shot by an arrow, or maybe he got burned by fire...

Testing and examining continues with shells inserted through holes and cracks of the "dinosaur that might be dead."

The dialogue was rich with theories about life and death. There was diverse tool use, inventive role play, and engagement with peers.
There was depth of interest in the investigation and quick, open thinking to participate in this conversation together.

Light Bulb: This experience with Cara, Lucas and Nolan is more than creativity, more than role playing, more than exploring with materials. What this experience brought to light for me was that the materials that are seemingly separate on science shelves are actually not separate at all. The children were driven by an inquiry about this skull that opened up the possibilities of how to use materials. In turn, I found that the children were driven to come back to Science to follow up their own work with the dinosaur from previous days.
Aha!: It was the first time that such a complex scenario was invented in an area of the classroom that is not known for role play to be meshed with inquiry.

For a combination of reasons on this day The Dinosaur That Might Be Dead the children looked at the materials in a new way. Cara, Lucas and Nolan didn't give a second thought to having all the equipment all over the table.
After all, you never know what you may need to bring a dinosaur back to life:  "Come on we got to do this fast, no time to talk, he is getting worse fast!"

the big art show!

Parents and guardians. Invaluable in the success of a school year on so many levels : support, communication, volunteer work.

parent/artist showing an abstract art piece & using the view finder

This particular year, we had an amazing opportunity to work with a parent in our 4s/5s class who was a professional artist!

step 1: watercolor!

The parent and teaching staff collaborated about the concept of this project.

We discussed the process, the materials, the timeline, and the storage during the process.
 

step 2: scraping tempura paint!

We discussed:
"WHY are we doing this?" 
"What do we do with the art?" 
and the specific goals of how children should be the creative forces as they gain unique skill from working with a professional artist. 

step 2: spreading tempura paint!

The first component was to have the children work with large art paper to engage in Abstract Art. The process was going to have three visits to their work to add layers : 1. Watercolors with brushes 2. Tempura type paint with scrapers and rollers and 3. Pen details and symbols with rulers as an option.

step 3: pen work for lines and symbols!

Each week the children would "revisit" their dried work and make decisions as to how much of the next process they would add. There was a reflective component where the children were examine their own work and that of their peers to admire and "discover" color or lines or swirls: Art Appreciation at its best.

Looking closer at our Abstract Art with the Viewfinder!

The second component of the process was for the children to examine close-up sections of their work with their "view finder" like an I SPY game.

They would search amid their own painting to find a section that caught their eye, we would take a photo of that section, and then they would describe it or name it. For example, one boy's overall painting was called "Rollercoaster" and one of his viewfinder sections was called "Upside Down!"

artist discusses with student.

student describes action of his art!

  

students wrote signs to guide our visitors to our exhibits.

The final component: The Big Art Show! We welcomed our entire school community to our classroom to admire and celebrate our work. This celebration was part of our All-School celebration when all classes are inviting parents and the school community to appreciate their work, as well. As a side note, we also had three other exhibits in our classroom at that time to uplift other work we had been doing all year - incredible work by this class group!

giant display boards with the student photo, their Abstract work and their 3 viewfinder frames!

parents sit on the center bench of the art rotunda to appreciate all the children's work!

a student describes her work to a visiting teacher!

The Art Show. Incredible. Our visitors were so impressed. 
Many were wanting to have the the art show displayed in our local town, in a real art studio! [we couldn't because of some other factors, yet the idea was fabulous!].
Because we were a project based classroom, we were so fortunate to have a parent who was "an art expert" that could share with students in a process oriented way AND offered the students an experience that allowed us to create our own museum. The riches of this journey - to have a parent take on a three month commitment to our class - was priceless. 

frog & toad on stage!

"TOAD" worries that the Ice Cream is melting!

Books that come to life.

There is nothing like YOUNG CHILDREN bringing a book to life with costumes and performing on stage.  
It is joyful and unpredictable and oh-so-memorable.

F & T has excellent stories for stage!

Guiding students to bring books to life is  - ideally -  a process by which children take hold of each step of the creation and performance.



 My teacher role...to uplift the group effort of drama performing with 4s and 5s:


1. I offer students a short list of books (from the very very long list of books that we have read all year) to vote for 1 or 2 to perform a play. (In order to do 2 plays at once, it would have to be shorter stories like Frog & Toad, or one year we did a "double play" of both Click-Clack-Moo: Cows that Type AND Giggle, Giggle, Quack by Doreen Cronin).

2. I support all students to be THE character THEY want to be - it doesn't matter if there are 7 main characters or if there are invented characters. Students MUST be allowed to follow their choice - THAT is how the performance overall will be the most spirited and the most cohesive.

3. Costume design: I help students brainstorm key features of the character they chose - wings? ears? snout? big eye balls? They explore materials we have in class and/or bring other items from home to create their costume.

Frog and "Froggy" in "Dragons & Giants"!

Two Butterflies in "Ice Cream"!

Hawks practicing their form for "Dragons & Giants"!

Toad in the "Ice Cream" story.

Frog in the "Ice Cream" story.

4. I walk students thru the book pages to discover existing scenery or places (beach, forest, ice cream shop, Toad's house) that we might create to make our book come to life. Use cardboard, donations, large easel paper...paper, paint and creativity. Less is more.

Program designed and written by the children.

5. I ensure our time line from start to finish is about 2.5 weeks.

Week One: for choosing our book and making our scenery.

Week Two: for making our costumes and starting to practice bringing the book to life.

The Final Half Week: is creating our program and performing for visitors.

Scenery, costumes, roles and dialogue - all choices made by the children.

6. I am usually the narrator, off to the side of the show, the voice that helps the students stay within the story. Yet, I leave great room for the unexpected and rely on the improvisations of the students to guide me. One year, we had an advanced reader in our class who voted himself to be the narrator!

The beginning of Dragons & Giants from Arnold Lobel's Frog & Toad - with 2 Frogs and 1 Toad!!

We welcomed our audience by telling them WHY and HOW these particular books came to life. We shared how we voted, made our own costumes, and made our scenery. We shared about having FUN with our friends to climb into the book and really become our characters in voice and action!

Take a Bow! All the characters from "Dragons & Giants".

We answered questions from the audience and bowed after all the applause.
Afterward, we had a Cast Party with all our family and school friends. And, yes, of course there was ice cream!

Other amazing, fabulous, favorite books to make come to life on stage:

1. Click, Clack, Moo: Cows That Type.
Doreen Cronin.
(the demands of cows on Farmer Brown!)

2. Caramba
Marie-Louise Gay
(poor Caramba...the only cat that cannot fly! ? !)

3. Wow! It's Great Being a Duck
Joan Rankin
(duck named Lily, an eggshell hat and a hungry wolf!)