I have a few minutes before our afternoon of professional development; let's see if I can get in an overview of what I'm up to in the emergent curriculum documentation department.
First off, read this neat article about an adorable pre-k class and their goldfish. Page 4 has a great overview on the components and value of documentation. As Lewin-Benham notes:
Documentation is the process
of recording children’s thoughts
and actions on a topic to maintain
their focus and expand their interest.
See? Neat!
After reading this, I decided to incorporate this concept into my Professional Development Plan.
Okay, I'll admit it: I love writing Vygotskian (even when I spell it wrong, ha). I noted in my PDP that I wanted to use poster boards and have additional board space in the hallway.
So I got a couple foam boards and premiered this documentation feature with our Acorn Study.
I crafted these over the course of a couple of weeks -- beginning with the students' descriptions, then the photograph, then the art, then the post-reflections. The poster board sat in or near circle at all times, and I added to it with the students present.
There were immediate advantages to documentation:
1. Students could revisit the unit.
2. Students were thrilled when their words / images / art were added to the board.
3. It was always accessible.
But there were also disadvantages:
1. Foam boards are ungaingly!
2. Where the heck was I going to put those million foam boards?
So I stressed and complained to my EA... And then we got our brains cooking! We took down all of the art from the bulletin board near our Música/Teatro center and put it back up around the room. Then, she titled the board Otoño and divided it down the middle - half for my AM class, half for my PM one.
Instead of writing directly onto the bulletin board, then, I wrote (modeling better stay-within-the-lines literacy too) in a notebook and showed it to students. My EA took pictures, and sometimes additional notes. Then, I would print the pictures along with student observations and captions, and put them on the board.
Some of the events featured:
- Students building the scarecrow from La Viejecita Que No Le Tenía Miedo a Nada
- Student summaries from the short animated film about Día de Los Muertos. Watch it and weep everywhere.
- Voting for favorite Jack-O-Lantern expressions
- Creating our leaf graphic
- Our pumpkin seed seasoning recipes
(CHECK that homemade memory game using leaf types from our mini-arboretum by our school.)
Following a fab idea from my EA, we can then store those boxes in different play areas. This one, for instance, is stored in Ciencia.
After the conclusion of the unit, then, my EA moved the board contents to the hallway and readied the board for our Winter unit:
This way, students have easy access to review our current unit -- and can review the past one as we trundle to and from outside and indoor gym play.
Next steps:
- Color pictures?
- More student art!
- More 3D media (a la the bellotas on my foam board)
- Build in a weekly time for each student to review the unit during free play.
Gracias por leer!
Thanks for reading!
