Storytelling and Other Magical Moments

This year I decided to link the creation of personal story boxes to our Unit of Inquiry, Where We Are in Place and Time.  Here is the story of our stories.

Beautiful things quietly support specific learning, socialising, self-management, focus and creativity.  How do you use loose parts for conversations? Provocations? Connecting with unit thinking? Provocations on a wet and rainy day. Bringing it inside for those wanting to continue and explore and choose new materials.

A materials exploration that leads to  student inquiries, evolving experts, magical moments and beautiful art.

As we inquire into systems of organization in kindergarten we joined with our Primary Arts Specialist to look at how and why we can organize through art.  We thought about why artists make decisions about art, color, line and why they make decisions about their art. They created collaborative art pieces during their time with her and during this time she also introduced the book, Tidying Up Art , Ursus Werli. This made me think about out our collabroative EAL Story/Art, The House with Thirteen Stories.  (See blog post) I asked my students to go back to and look at our story, that was still hanging on the wall. I asked... How can we tidy up our art? Each child took their own personal "story" and cut each piece of their story. In my different EAL group lessons we began organizing the cut objects into categories.  Numbers. Windows. People. Stairs. Animals. Big Things. Things Inside the Home.  Snowflakes. etc... We cut and glued. Organized, ...

I wanted to use some of the new tools that we purchased for an open ended provocation at Outdoor Learning.  All I needed was broken electronics, some screw drivers and a place to organize all the cool pieces or loose parts. The focus, attention to detail and negotiations made with all the pieces that offered a fantastic opportunity to observe language, confidence and also fine motor skills. The group at the table are intently working and  sharing the materials. The foreground shows some of their thinking with the bigger parts. Gray. Silver. Black White. Clear. They chose to sort by color, material, size and texture. Asserting themselves at times in order to be heard and understood.                                   What do we do next with all these amazing Loose parts?

Thoughout the school year I always hope to provide provocations for storytelling in many ways.  For me, watching students take loose parts, found objects and at times random pieces of "stuff" to create stories is an amazing and intricate process. They must choose. Think. Choose. Think. Then tell. While hoping to create something fun, cool, unique and interesting, with unusual choices of materials.  Infusing materials of all textures, quality, size and shape have also allowed for integrating discussion about our Unit of Inquiry, How the World Works .  Below are images of story scenes. Each scene had characters, beginning, middle and an ending. The Penguin and the Pool The Princess Fights the Baddies The Alien Builds a Home (and Eats a Butterfly) Butterfly Hotels

And then there was Blood. As we entered our new unit of inquiry thinking about Who We Are, the enthusiasm for storytelling had surfaced and could not be contained. Those who were originally hesitant to tell stories or share anything understood now that this was a safe environment to take risks, try new ideas and play, whilst telling stories and developing new language skills. During our first brainstorm about the unit, the concept of blood, injury, emergencies and hospital rose to the top of their interests and thus entered their play naturally. I took their lead and began listening to their stories.  It started with real injuries and the boys arguing who was stronger and who have more courage. Everyone expressing loudly "I never cry!" and "I am the strongest!" and "Even if I broke my head I never cry." There were also stories of compassion. Stories about students taking care of their friends at outdoor learning or helping a younger sibling a...

Princesses and Castles. This is how it all started. A simple backdrop that gave one student with very limited English a "private" quiet space to practice language.  The language and the world she loved. It was a world full of, "Wa-su-ponee-tie (Once upon a time)" and "Dey-lii-happy-ezer-afer (They lived happily ever after)" two of the few sentences she spoke. So I went with it. She would sing and try new words, ask and point to things around the class. Princesess, Frozen, Elsa, Anna, Cinderella, witches, unicorns, jewels, love, kisses, marriage, death and horses. She would sing her stories loudly and other students would watch. They were not as interested in princesses, but in telling their own stories around the castles was definitely cool. Storytelling with a simple castle scene. She was able to focus on the language she wanted and needed to be successful, intrinsically motivated and have fun. Others didn't want to tell stories with a ...