River ribbons

On Wednesday, we started off the lesson looking at some artwork by New Hope Impressionists and other artists who have created views of the river. A range of images was included, showing sights from the Delaware River Gap down to Gloucester, NJ. We talked about how our last word brainstorm for the river cinquain poem was just from our heads and our ideas of rivers, but this time we'd use the pictures for inspiration. With the kids paired up, each pair got a color copy of an image to view, and the class was instructed to use the title and artist as the starting point for a word splash, then consider the setting (including season, weather, physical features of the landscape), actions (what people were or could do in that painting), and sensory words (how it would feel to be in the picture). Students spent about 30 minutes together brainstorming ideas. The brainstorm was intended to prepare students with inspiration for a free verse poem to be written after they completed their river ribbon.

Daniel Garber, Tohickon

Using the river poems students wrote based off of last week's wordsplash, students wrote them out onto ribbons to be sewn into the river for the collaborative piece. We remembered a reading we had done a few weeks before comparing a river to "ribbons of water". I asked them about what was important about a cinquain form and suggested we change colors on the ribbons to suggest the different lines of the poem. I explained how to use the fabric markers on the ribbons, and then the students copied their poems onto the ribbons. It required a light touch, which some students had no trouble with. Other students used too much pressure and were frustrated with how much the markers "bled" on the ribbons. I find this to be an interesting exercise for penmanship- it needed students to slow down and be more careful about spacing and sensitive to the surface. Some students figured it out, and others still had trouble. To diffuse the frustration with the medium we compared the ribbons again to water, saying we were setting our words into the water. This revealed another metaphor for the process, which not particularly overtly made as a connection, was one of the ideas we were interested in having the students learn.
Once students completed copying out their cinquain poem, they brought their ribbon over to the collaborative piece to select its placement. Students were very familiar with the river features vocabulary in stating where they wanted their ribbon to be along the river.
With everybody pinned, Cindy explained how to continue with their free verse poem inspired by the images at the beginning of class. She compared word choice in a poem to the colors, textures, and brushstrokes an artist uses in a painting. I reinforced this idea by showing the elements of color and texture in our collaborative piece. The rest of class was spent helping students with the writing process.

Plants of the Delaware and River words brainstorm

On Friday, I hung up the collaborative Delaware River map for the kids to copy into their sketchbooks while a few of the students finished up their leaf embroideries. Cindy helped the embroiderers while I got set up for our lesson. We brought in the laptop and projector in order to take a look at a satellite view of our watershed. The kids noticed that the satellite view was like a bird's-eye view. We located the Delaware and compared it to the fiber version to make sure we could find all our river parts (source, meander, tributary, mouth/delta).

looking at the satellite view-
the kids were excited to see the zoom in and out to see the world
and then their school close-up

 We pointed out the low land in Pennsylvania, Delaware, and New Jersey where there are many farms and a lot of "green" on the satellite view. We brainstormed with the kids some of the plants and crops that grow in our area, based on the farms they've seen or visited, or fruits and vegetables they eat at home. They came up with strawberries, corn, tomatoes, blueberries, pumpkins, watermelons, and carrots. We even noted that Chester County, PA is famous for mushrooms! We saw lots of green in NJ, and I pointed out the gigantic forest of pine trees called the Pine Barrens. We looked at the mountains and talked about why there aren't many farms up in the mountains, because of colder temperatures and rough, rocky terrain, but there are lots of forests.

Emily cuts out her embroidered leaf

 Next we transitioned to cutting our leaves out to place on the collaborative Delaware River map. I asked the students to decide where they wanted to put their leaf, mark it on their drawing, and have a reason why they wanted it there. I showed the students my sample cut-out leaf, and Cindy noted it was an organic shape not a geometric shape.

Liz decides where her leaf should go on her map
 and Justin shares his leaf ready to pin up

 Cindy supervised the cutting-out while I stayed near the river model ready to pin the kids' leaves as they were finished.As students completed cutting out their leaf, they came up to me with their leaf and sketchbook to tell me where they wanted their leaf to go and why. Some chose spots in New Jersey because that's where they go in the summer. Some wanted their leaf up in the mountains with the forests. A few wanted to be in the suburbs because there are lots of trees where they live.

the giant river model before the leaves got pinned

When all the leaves went up, we moved on to brainstorming for our next project- a river poem to add to our map. Cindy helped keep us on track for what kind of words and language they'll need for writing their cinquain next week by prompting possibilities as I wrote the students' words up onto the board into a giant word splash. The children created their own version in their sketchbooks, taking notes, which finally, we had them go back and color/circle words they think they'll want to use.