doing | Thinking Through My Lens

You know it’s been a good day in the classroom when nobody has to go to the bathroom. That’s not to say that students didn’t need to go–or even that they didn’t go, just that the asking and the going doesn’t interfere with the learning and learning activities that are going on.

I notice that those are days filled with lots of doing. Today started with students going online to vote for anti-hate messaging from a contest we entered. The google form made it easy for each to independently watch the short videos and make decisions about the images and poems and posters and more. After Cardio Club and an abbreviated morning routine, we dove headfirst into another weaving project. (You can find a mini post about last week’s weaving here.) A novel tool is always a plus…who knew there were 18 inch rulers? Using a ruler to measure effectively and to draw straight lines is challenging for third graders, but with a little help from their friends all were able to manage the task. (I wish I had remembered to take photos!) Finishing our 4-triangle inquiry set the stage for a study of two-voice poems through the poem Squares by Theoni Pappas. (And that was all before recess!)

Add some bubble blowing and birthday cookies along with a couple of chapters of Save Me a Seat before we dove into writing claims about the “right” age for kids to be able to stay home alone. We were sharing our claims when the principal and superintendent stopped by. (While the claims were more similar than I would have liked, students did a great job composing defensible claims based on some articles we read…a great early effort!)

We returned to the weaving project, tracing geometric shapes that would be woven into the monochromatic art piece that features design, math, and writing.

tracing shapes

After some last detailed directions before lunch, students returned to the classroom after lunch to weave their geometric shapes into striking pieces of art. We were so engaged, we almost forgot to get our things packed up to go home! (And the photo included above is the only photo I took today! I’ll have to take some of the finished products once we get our two-voice poetry completed.)

This was definitely a doing day!

Do you speak in images? Enjoy taking photos to document your experiences or just to express what you notice in the world? Love to share them with others? Welcome to the weekly photo challenge! I post a new challenge each week…check in regularly and join the fun!

Tomorrow is my last day of school with my students, so they’ve been thinking a lot about summer and what they will be doing. And we’ve been doing a lot in the classroom this last week, taking advantage of our mild sunny weather and the incredible independence the students have developed over the course of the school year. Monday was a field trip to the NAT–the San Diego Natural History Museum–where students were busy doing a lot of inquiring and thinking about all the science learning they have done this year.

Here’s one of my students using his hands to pedal to create the energy to cause water to run in a sink. And then I couldn’t resist snapping this picture of a group of students busily writing in the pirate ship at the NAT.

Yesterday we had our second annual rock climbing event with third graders. It’s bittersweet to get to June when you’ve taught students for three years and know that they will be leaving and moving on to 4th grade and a new school too. So we spent yesterday afternoon rock climbing at a climbing gym. I got many shots of kids doing climbing. I love watching them gain confidence as they try again and again. This little girl had no fear…she climbed to the very top again and again!

This one isn’t my student, but I love when students take the initiative to make a difference in the world. I found these informational signs around our school, attached to fences with pipe cleaners. I did manage to track down the authors so I could congratulate them for their earnest efforts to improve the world.

And I’ve been doing some doing too. Just recently we put on an Advanced Institute at our writing project (SDAWP) focused on paper circuitry. It’s such fun to play around with writing and science and all the connections between the two. Here’s a fairly rudimentary parallel circuit I made playing with conductive thread instead of the copper tape I’ve used before.

And over the weekend I was exploring our local botanical gardens when I came face to face with this little guy. A lot of my doing is related to photography…and it takes me to interesting places and seeing (and photographing( interesting things.

And all this thinking about doing has me thinking about the CLMOOC (which begins tomorrow) and the making and doing I will be involved in there. I hope all of you will join in the fun as well!

So this week’s challenge is to focus on doing…your own or the doing you see around you. You can be watching doing in action, capture things you are doing, or any combination that works for you. As always, you are the one who gets to decide what counts as doing…so have fun, and start doing, especially if you are having fun!

You can post your photo alone or along with some words: commentary, a story, a poem…maybe even a song! I love to study the photographs that others’ take and think about how I can use a technique, an angle, or their inspiration to try something new in my own photography. (I love a great mentor text…or mentor photo, in this case!)

I share my photography and writing on social media. You can find me on Instagram and Twitter using @kd0602. If you share your photos and writing on social media too, please let me know so I can follow and see what you are doing. To help our Weekly Photo community find each other, use the hashtag #doing for this week and include @nwpianthology in your post.

So get going and get doing! Can’t wait to see what you are doing this week.