River Timeline

Wednesday and Friday this week we continued our focus on the Delaware River, but this time looked at the timeline of who was here and how it was used. We started off by doing a guided reading of (help me out Cindy- I forget the title and author!) 

As we read the book aloud as a class, Cindy and I would stop and explain any terms we thought were hard to understand. The children each had 4 post-it notes to take notes for the 4 periods of time we would be discussing. On the board I created a similar timeline showing the 4 time periods of Indians, Settlers, Industrial, and Modern. As we moved through the book, we wrote notes on the board under each time period. I also had a strip of paper folded in 4 to visually illustrate the changes in the landscape and the river over time.

With Wednesday being a half day, the children were a bit distractible, and it took longer than I expected to get through the guided reading. We had just enough time at the end to pass out the folded accordion book pages for the students to put their names and post-it notes into.

Friday was more productive. With the paper strip timeline up on the board, we reviewed the special information about each time period. The students remembered quite a bit! We also brainstormed some various ways to represent trees, tree stumps, wigwams, farms, houses, factories, and inventions to create a visual timeline in our books as background and illustration for the text. The students were allowed to use colored pencil or crayon to draw their symbols. We started off with the river representing the timeline down the center of the book, and with the color changing on the third page to show how dirty the river got during the industrial revolution. While students were working, Cindy and I circulated the room, encouraging students to fill the pages, asking them how they were representing their ideas, helping them if they got stuck, etc.

It's interesting to see how wide the range of artistic development there is among the students. Some of them followed directions and used the images as symbols, like on a map.

Mary's visual timeline

Brooke's timeline with symbols

Other students took a more pictorial approach, drawing scenes along their timeline. 

 

Samia's scenic timeline

 

Angelica got engrossed in details in the wigwams and horse

Isaiah's is between symbolic and scenic

Next time we'll copy sentences describing each time period onto sticker labels to insert on each page and bind our books with covers.

River Model Prep

To prepare the students for our river model project and incorporate some reading practice, Cindy found a great 2-page story about 3 kids making a relief map model out of dough. A lot of art vocabulary was used, like modeling and representation, and Cindy defined dough in a very tactile way that should have them sparked for working with the model magic on Friday! Cindy and the guided reading specialist pulled aside particular kids for guided reading groups to help them through the story while I kept an eye on class progress, answered any vocab questions, and redirected some of them to where to find the answers for the comprehension questions at the end. It was interesting to see how so many of them gloss over or write simple/easy answers, but when prodded or questioned to think about the "why" then they are able to provide a more in-depth answer. There's a lot of copying going on, even artistically, and I wonder right now if it's just a strategy that helps the below-level students keep up and how much to allow it.
While we waited for students to finish the reading we passed out sketchbooks and gave kids time to color some of the sketches they had done on our trips. It was nice to revisit the experience that way. Some of the kids debated about what they saw when/where.

With everyone ready, I asked the kids what the reading was about (making a model out of clay). I asked them if they remembered seeing any other models when we were on our trips (the swing bridge at the canals, the Delaware river map at Penn's Landing, and the pollution watershed model at Riverbend). I told them we would be making our own river models and so we needed to brainstorm what important things should be on the model. With "Parts of a River" written on the board the kids helped fill in the spidergram (water, land, tributaries, mountains, source, mouth, animals, plants, roads, houses, bridges, boats, buildings, urban, suburban, rural).

When we got to the last 3 words about community types a student hopped up and brought me a chart they had made with Cindy showing urban, suburban, and rural in concentric rings with pictograms of what one might see in each spot and how crowded or spread out they'd be (I love seeing how much drawing Cindy uses in her lessons- is this a new thing? Even in the math lesson I saw at the end she asked the kids which way it was easiest to solve the problem-- and stressed drawing a picture). This gave us a quick review and opportunity to talk about communities we've seen and experienced, and compare the kids' more suburban life with my city life.

 With that I told the students that we'd be making our own river models that share all the physical river features (and we circled source, mouth, land, river, tributary, and meander) but that they'd be able to choose whether their model showed a rural, suburban or urban area. I passed out the mdf boards we'll be using as a base for the children to trace in their sketchbooks and make a plan. I asked them what we call that plan an artist makes before they start a project (Sketch!).
The kids had plenty of time to draw a design for their river model, which I hope will make the creation of it on Friday an easier process. It allowed for some problem-solving and checking of student understanding.
I think we're ready to make some models!

River features intro

Today we started early to avoid the Halloween-y afternoon mayhem. We gave the kids time to add final details to their projects, which fortunately allowed some kids who had been absent to catch up. When everyone was finished I called 3 sets of students 2 at a time to take a look at some of their choices and ask the class what was the same and what was different. This was to reinforce the compare/contrast idea we introduced on Wednesday as well as to give the kids a chance to conclude the project with a critique of sorts. I also asked the kids what they thought the final product should be: a mounted piece to hang on the wall or a functional piece that would be useful. It was a unanimous decision to have something useful, so I'll be sewing them on the machine to turn them into little ditty bags which they can hold their upcoming timeline book project in.

It was then time to introduce more river information. Cindy led the students in reading a packet that described rivers in their multiple aspects. Doing the reading helped emphasize main idea and details which we'll continue to stress when we start our river models next week. Cindy had begun a drawing on the board when the reading discussed ports at the mouths of rivers. When the reading began describing source and waterfalls, I continued the drawing so we ended with a full illustration on the board. With this in mind next week we'll have the kids sketch and plan what to include in their river models before we work them in clay.

Literacy Goals are Moving Along!

Yesterday, after spending 2 weeks doing DRA's (Developmental Reading Assessments), I see some good progress! After 8 weeks in school, the children that I gave the assessments to had made considerable gains. One student went up 2 levels! Using art as a basis for teaching writing skills and supplementing those with Guided Reading (small group reading at their level focusing on comprehension skills), is starting to show some definite progress in both reading and writing. We have completed 4 pieces of writing, from graphic organizer to rough draft to edited copy. From those 4 pieces, all students have gained at least 2 points (10%) improvement. This improvement in only 8 weeks is very impressive to me. I have been teaching third grade for 7 years, and am quite impresssed. Most students have raised their scores even more. We are beginning our 5th piece tomorrow, with a compare/ contrast essay on the Nile River and the Amazon River. Both rivers have been stitched on the students Map of the World Fabric Piece.

We have done 2 Main Idea/Detail activities, Teacher modeled first, then student completed independently. The first was on a piece of non-fiction on Rivers, the second on Canals. This literature follows our theme. Informational writing follows this format also, however the students find it much easier to recognize the Main Idea when they have written it themselves! This intricate web of daily activities wrapped around our Teaching Artist and activities is starting to blossom, and the evidence is slowly emerging!

Day 4: Furtraders Narrative ;Cindy's Response

As usual, Marie has done an incredible job of capturing the essence of the lesson in her writing (the previous blog)! I will add that the students noticed a similarity in one of the Van Gogh paintings to The Gleaners. That observation led to a discussion that Van Gogh and Millet were from the same area, and may have seen some of the same types of activities in the community around them. We noticed that the "mood" in Van gogh's similar painting was much 'darker' and briefly discussed the artist's purpose of what he wanted the viewer to see or experience. This observation gave the students an experience in "Author's Purpose", another reading goal we haven't yet explored.

I'd like to note that this experience of writing, brainstorming and recognizing Problem/Solution is a skill not usually fully understood this early in the Third Grade school year. We have only been together for a little more than 3 weeks, and the students seem to have mastered the concept. This will help the students immensely in their reading comprehension. I had never thought to use illustrations or artworks as a springboard for this concept, what an incredible learning experience for me!

As is always the case, time is the enemy in the classroom! There's never enough of it. After Marie left, the students wrote out their Problem/Solutions based on The Furtraders, and they were great! EVERY student exhibited understanding of the concept. I collected them, assessed them, and they are ready to be glued into their sketchbooks next to the foursquare they had used to organize their thoughts. Remember, the foursquare also required them to write and choose who the characters were and the setting, another reading goal!