The Gruffalo and The Gruffalo's Child have been one of our favourite stories during our How We Express Ourselves inquiry into storytelling. Last week some children had an idea in one of our Afternoon Meetings: "We can make our own Gruffalo story!" Ideas were exchanged, like The Gruffalo's Twin and The Gruffalo's sister and this week the children had an opportunity to revisit and extend these ideas. We shared our individual story ideas as part of a class discussion and supported each other in brainstorming the forms in which the stories could be shared, including films, playdough, puppets, drawings, books, and more. In the end, the group settled on two main forms of storytelling they wanted to explore further:
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After sharing the book and giving a drawing demonstration, we shared some of our own original books with Fleur. How exciting to get some feedback from a real author and illustrator! Thank you Fleur!
For the last few weeks we have been exploring the story Little Red Riding Hood in different ways. This week, we finished some storytelling projects related to this inquiry.
Gracie, Eddie, Kotoha and Jumi shared a dramatic performance of an original story called 'Little Red Riding Hood and the Monstrous Nightmare':
Carlotta shared her artistic fold-out story, sequencing her favourite version of the story:
Jay and Kotaru shared their book of an original story called 'Little Red Riding Hood and the Tornado':
Rui shared his book of an original story called 'Little Red Riding Hood and the Three Scary Monsters That Can Turn to Anything':
Continuing our inquiry into stories, we have been exploring music as a storytelling medium. Last week in music, we worked with Ms. Marnie to tell our own version of Little Red Riding Hood using music. Ms. Marnie and Ms. Alison noticed that this was a challenging idea for the children. They seemed to prefer other methods like using props and acting. When instruments were used it seemed more random than intentional.
This week in our main classroom we tried telling a story with music again - this time in a different way. After reading a big book version of The Three Little Pigs , we each selected an instrument. We wondered: which instrument sound might connect with which characters and events in the story? We then turned through the pages of the story again. This time instead of reading, we played our instruments to represent the storyline!
In addition to English versions of the story, we have listened to and viewed Little Red Riding Hood in five different languages: Japanese, Italian, Korean, sign language, and Mandarin!!
Next week, we will complete our Little Red Riding Hood storytelling projects and present our finished work to our classmates.
During our independent Work on Writing time, we have been practicing 'reading the pictures' in picture books and adding words using sticky notes and our emergent writing skills. This week we reflected on this work and our questions with a philosophy discussion: During our discussion, we shared many theories. Some of us even changed our original ideas when we heard and considered the ideas of our friends. Through this discussion, Ms. Alison learned a few key things about our understandings:
The children:
Next week we will consider the question: Can one picture tell a story? as this remains a point of cognitive conflict for us. This semester we have been working on extending our number knowledge by exploring what happens when we combine groups of objects. We have been practicing the skill of counting on to find a total number when objects are combined. Roll & Record In this game, we roll two dot cubes. We determine which dot cube is more by counting the dots or subitizing (knowing immediately by recognizing the visual pattern). Then we 'count on' from the bigger number using the twenty number line as support. For example, if we roll 2 and 7 we count on from 7: "7, 8, 9". Through this game we are learning what happens when two groups of objects (or two numbers) are combined, and how best to organize our counting (counting on). Toss the Chips In this game we can choose any number of chips to start with. Usually we have been choosing 5, 6 or 10. We take turns tossing the chips and sorting them by their colours when they land: one red group and one white group. Then we count how many chips we find in each group and record these numbers. Through this game we are playfully learning different combinations of numbers that equal the same total. Racing Bears Racing Bears is our absolute favourite game! Many children chose to play this with their parents at the Student-Led Conferences. In this game we work together with our partner to roll a dot cube and move four bears towards a jewel. Through this game we are practicing counting and counting on, as well as learning to analyze and evaluate how to make combinations of numbers which equal ten.
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