Learning Parade

Powerful Polar Bear Portraits

This simple art activity was an opportunity to combine two painting techniques with bold, contrasting colours. But our fantastic children took it to a much higher level!

During our preparation, the children gathered images and watched videos of polar bear families on the Arctic ice. As expected, this eventually led to a discussion about the decline of the species due to global warming and habitat loss.  What I didn't expect was the children's decision to respond to the decline of polar bears directly in their art. One child suggested that everyone should keep saying the word "threatened" in their heads while they painted. Powerful. 

When we stood back and observed the children's completed work, it was obvious from the bears' facial expressions that their wonderful idea had been so effective!

Free Gruffalo Word Mat

Here's a free word mat containing our own images, to use when scaffolding children's writing inspired by the Gruffalo by Julia Donaldson. Just click on the image and download. :)

Using Story Wheels : The Gruffalo

Here is a great way to help young children retell a familiar story. It's really a retake on the story map, yet this becomes an interactive visual aid to assist with retelling.

Use when sharing a children's picture book that has a clear plot defined in parts by characters (like The Gruffalo, The Enormous Turnip, Monkey Puzzle), or by objects (such as Dear Santa, Don't Forget the Bacon, Going on A Bear Hunt).

Draw or copy images of the characters/objects onto a circle in the correct order, as they appear in the story. (For Don't Forget the Bacon, children could even cut pictures out of food magazines). In our Gruffalo story wheel, we're ordering the characters who mouse meets, so the four characters are coloured and pasted on.

Adding numbers to the wheel scaffolds the activity, just leave them off to create more of a challenge. Place a second circle on top, with a window removed just the right size to reveal one character or object at a time. Secure with a split pin. Our story wheel has mouse on the top, so he faces each new character in turn!

Newspaper Blackout Poems

Who is Austin Kleon? An inspiring contemporary poet. He uses newspaper articles from the New York Times as unique canvases for creating his verse. Here is one of Austin's first time lapse videos that immediately had me intrigued last year:

 

Of course the first thing I wanted to do, after trying it out myself, was to see if the children would find this technique successful and worth exploring. We began by visiting the official website Newspaperblackout.com, where the children could read examples by Austin and view poems shared by fans using his method. As we watched a short interview with the poet, I could see that the boys in particular were itching to give it a try. "This is cool, have we got newspapers?"

They were immediately hooked. 

I think the most daunting thing for a child who wants to write creatively is a blank page. So white, so empty, so demanding. As a teacher, finding ways to make the planning process less of a struggle is always top of my agenda.

This really works.

The newspaper acts as a scaffold. Children with a limited vocabulary are exposed to words, in context, that they can use directly in their poem. I used a type of modelled writing to show the children how I used the method myself, carefully talking through the entire process. Then the children worked in pairs, or alone if they preferred, to create their own blackout poems.

We also did this a few weeks before the children were doing a unit on writing newspaper recounts, so this was a great opportunity to talk about headlines, sub-headings and columns etc. My socks were blown off when I read the results. Some children even used this as an opportunity to incorporate simile and metaphor - techniques we'd previously explored!!!

You'll need to provide a stack of newspaper articles (careful with content ;) ), black sharpie pens or permanent markers and scissors.

In the process of modelling....

and one child's blackout poem:

"Twins

get a new

             mum

and dad

when

    The boys, who

had a 

terrible  kid

                    situation

ran   from

                their parents

                                to

Nottinghamshire

Here you can see how one child has used the end 's' sound, the word a, and the next capital letter 'T' to create "sat" - this one poem is so intense. 

I just wish I'd taken more photographs of these... make sure you do!! I'm sure Austin would love to have more contributions to his site!