Manaiakalani "Create" Staff Meeting

 

Instead of our usual staff meeting we all headed up to Glenn Taylor school for an opportunity to participate in two "Create" Manaiakalani professional development sessions of our choice.  I attended sessions by  

and 

Jo Gormley showed us some story maps produced by her year 1 students based on the story of "The Three Little Pigs".  The students had discussions on sequencing the story and then drew appropriate buildings to retell the story on a map.  They even thought about where the building materials might have come from and drew fields for the hay for the pig to make his house of straw and a forest for the pig to gather the sticks for the house of sticks.  They honed in on Mother Pigs house and discussed and dramatised how Mother Pig would be feeling as the Little Pigs left home.  Apparently even the quieter students became involved as they worked in small groups, words were gifted and all contributions were discussed.  

This is a great technique to expand oral language and in looking at maps made by older students it can be used at any level and can go as "Deep and Wide" as you wish to take it.  Jo got us to work with a partner, using a quote and when we looked at what each group got out of the quote it was amazing how wide ranging the discussions had been and what each group drew as a representation of their take on it.  

For younger children, using a story the children were familiar with, would help with their discussions and understanding for an initial trial of using story maps.  Once they understood what was required, unfamiliar stories could be unpacked and dramatised in a similar way.  This would be a fun way to help our students expand their oral language.

My second session was with Hannah Wast on the use of photography as a creative medium.  Hannah showed us some of the photos taken by students this year at Pt England School.  Having watched these students at work I was amazed at the quality of the children's work - the composition of their photos and the techniques they had used to take the photos was very professional.  The children used a grid to line up their subjects and they obviously thought carefully about what they were going to photograph and what angles they could use to the best advantage.

We were also shown some very creative videos the children made and narrated using lego figures.  They had thought up some great adventures for these figures and filmed them doing these things using the outside area around them.

Unfortunately it was too wet for us to go outside and see what we could find to photograph but we had a go at photographing things in the classroom from odd angles just to see what it was like working with a digital camera and thinking creatively. 

An egg carton!

 

As our children all have iPads with cameras, it is another creative medium we can use even in the Junior area.  Children get down low and think of all sorts of angles to use and can produce work of a high standard given the opportunity to do so.