Welcome to Clarke Elementary TAG! I believe the home to school connection is so important, and this blog should help keep the lines of communication open. I look forward to a great year with your children!
Our second grade group has spent this week immersing themselves in the Doodle Game. This game was reintroduced to me by another TAG teacher, Mark Steven Hess. While it was an activity I did earlier in my teaching career, it had slipped away until recently.
The Doodle Game is great for visual-spacial learners, but it also ties in literacy standards that include dialogue, description, and development of character experiences and events. We started off by introducing the rules. First, the doodle may not take up the whole space; second, the doodle may not be too intricate; and third, the doodle lines may not cross. Then we brainstormed what the doodle could be turned into, and it was AMAZING to hear all of the ideas! The creativity was oozing out of these kids!
The Rules
The next few pictures started with the same doodle but took on lives of their own!
Tadpole...
Seashell and Baymax
The first day of the game was spent building that creativity, but beyond that, was all about story building. Each student had the same starter doodle and five minutes to complete the picture. Then, it was story time! We all took turns telling the story behind our doodle character, developing the events, using transitional words, and creating narrative experiences.
We now have sixteen story ideas that are ready to dive into. I can't wait to see what they come up with next!
Who out there has heard of TED Talks? It is a phenomenon organization that was founded the same year I was born, but I hadn't realized its popularity or potential until a few years ago. TED is an organization with the tag line, "Ideas Worth Spreading." How cool is that? Thanks to modern technology, anyone with a wifi connection can now listen to these amazing people speak about their passions and in turn, become inspired.
The point of the above paragraph is this: anyone can become an expert if they are allowed the time and confidence to explore their passions. David Kelley, the speaker in the video below, has become an inspiration to me and my teaching. My goal in this TAG classroom is to provide your children and opportunity to find their passions, build their creativity, and learn that perseverance is key.
We do our best to apply our creativity each and every day in room 247! The forth grade class has been working on Renaissance cranes. The challenge is to use simple machines, Renaissance materials, and the strategies they have learned to design and build a working crane, able to lift a stapler.
One student jumped right in! He immediately started building up, up, up. He threw craft sticks together right and left. Throughout his building, there were several moments where I asked about "his plan", not really sure if he had thought it through. He assured me, he had it, and I was not going to squash his creativity...
Yesterday, he came up to me and said, "Mrs. Fitz, I think I got ahead of myself. I'm going to take it apart because it is a hot mess." (I love that he used "hot mess"!)
My first thought was something along the lines of, "Uh oh. He can't be giving up...how can we turn this around?"
However, he had that covered. My thought was immediately squashed with his next words, "But that is ok! I tested it out, it wasn't working, but that is part of the process. I have new ideas that I think will work better!"
Experiment. Fail. Learn. Repeat. I guess our classroom motto is starting to set in!
