Sunday's Lullabies

I hope you have enjoyed these series and learn something from it!

Song: Lie by Madclown ft. Lee Hae Ri   & What2Do by Dean ft. Crush x Jeff Bernat

2016 is coming to an end... Although signs were given of the ending of a year that was full of ups and downs, for some strange reason it feels like it just crept on me. Time is something that I had always dislike because you don't notice it until you look back and realize that the memories, friends, moments have become fuzzier and hard to remember. Places, people, moments that you once cherished with all your soul are far away or gone and there is nothing to do, there is only the famous phrase of "move on" but move on from what? from what makes who you are? what has shaped you one way or another, how can you move on from that? when it will always be there. 

This year, I lost my great-grandmother and it changed everything for me. She was 95 years old and lived enough to see many changes in this world. She was an amazing storyteller and always full of life, an inspiration. As the days go by, those memories with her get fuzzier and interlock with others and at times it feels like I'm telling a story rather than recalling memories. That's what time does to you, everything becomes dreams from a far away life.

Thoughts that have come to me this morning that I thought I should post here. This year has been a learning experience, just like the others but this year I have come to realize the impact that our decisions, words, actions have on others. I wouldn't say that I am a selfish individual but some of my actions were selfish one way or another. Heck! the world has been so selfish this year and cruel at times. Our actions as minimal as we see them impact so much and the decisions we take for ourselves and others can either be great or damaging. I don't watch the news like I used to before because every time I put it on- pain, suffering, and death creeps out of it- not stopping ever, it's just one after the other and yes there has been great news, discovery, moments and I don't want to sound depressing or judgemental but it does get to you and the questioning begins- why is this happening? Why can't we see how greedy and unfair the system that we have created is, and how it has affected millions of life for years, decade, centuries! Can we really change things? Is it too late for us human beings to see the damage that we have caused for our brothers and sisters and the entire world- where do we go from here? And what can I do to make it better? That is all that I wish for 2017, for me and all of us to learn how to appreciate one another, our differences and similarities- to love and be loved and to give back to our communities and the world. 

I hope that all of you have an amazing day, wherever you are.

'The Project Approach builds on natural curiosity, enabling children to interact, question, connect, problem-solve, communicate, reflect, and more." If you are interested in this type of approach check out the Project Approach website, they have great resources and project guide to help you start it.

This is kind of like a unit project but guided by student's interest. I completed this project in a span of 2-3 weeks, but this can expand to months. 

Phase I: Getting Started

This Project started when some children were retelling me what they have learned from their previous class. Some of the children would bring leaves from their play in front of the school yard to give me as a present, thus I thought that I could use this sudden interest and see how far we can get with it. I read the children Mouse First Fall by Lauren Thompson and Buket Erdogan as a provocation to see whether the children were actually interested in the subject of leaves.

This literacy activity led to the main question of "why do leaves change color?" and a discussion on why they thought the leaves changed colors, helped us create our web map. This question led the way for a fun investigation that transforms itself into something the children were looking forward to expanding.

For our first activity, I decided to collect leaves from the school's front yard and placed them on the table with notecards and crayons. For this activity, the children created an observational drawing of the leaves around the school and/or the neighborhood.

These are picture of some of their observational drawings:

Anticipatory Planning

For this project I wanted to prepare myself in order to answer the question asked during phase I. I decided to create a web map by including information such as; the names of the different types of leaves, the scientific reason  why the leaves change colors, what are the leaves jobs, among other questions. However, as I introduced the second activity, I soon realized that the children were more interested in what they could create with the leaves than the scientific terminology I was throwing at them. I decided to focus on the creative aspect of this project, but still, included information that I belief to be good for them to learn.

Books used during Phase I:

      

I hope you have enjoy this series. I will be writing more about my student teaching experience during the Spring semester.

Monday (Dec.5)

On Monday, we began the letter "C" with the kids. "Curly Caterpillar" was the story we read and then the children were asked to recall the words that began with "C" in the story. We also did a pre-assessment activity  in order to asses student's knowledge of the letter. At the end of the lesson I always like to count the words that we wrote down. The activity for today was to glue cottonball to a cut-out C.

Friday (Dec.9)

On Friday, I had my last observation. I prepared a lesson plan to conclude this week letter with a story and fine-motor skill activity. I created an anchor chart and short activity from the book as well.