Image 1. Students begin their dance (left) of the parts of the flower (right [1])
This year CONNECT Researcher Dr. Christine Lee and Demonstration Teacher Anna Terrazas (Rooms 3 & 4) have been collaborating in designing playful learning as a way of understanding the structure and function of flowers. During this winter quarter, I had the opportunity to observe a dance put together by the students. The students created this dance to show how they understand and represent the structure and function of flower parts (see Image 1).
In the world of education, innovative approaches are constantly emerging to engage students in meaningful and memorable learning experiences. One such experience unfolded in the lab school classrooms recently as we delved into the fascinating realm of flowers, turning a lesson on flower parts into a dance-filled exploration. But why introduce movement into the learning process and how did this process look like?
During the Winter quarter, I have had the opportunity to observe and participate in research on the importance of wordless picture books with Dr. Christine Lee at CONNECT Research and EC2 demonstration teachers Kelly Peters, Eric Varela, and Arlen Nava. Through this collaboration, I’ve learned how wordless picture books can facilitate language development through creative oral storytelling that allows for an interactive reading experience for students. Wordless picture books are books with illustrations and little to no text. With a lack of words, there is no “right” or concrete indication of what is occurring, leaving ample space to foster a sense of independence in reading. It also lets students read the illustrations in the book to come up with their own stories and have control over how the stories will take place.
Image 1. Students lining up in front of the classroom to provide tickets and be seated
During this winter quarter, I had the opportunity to visit the Room 13 Theater as students became the characters from a wordless book called Where’s Walrus? On this day, I watched as the students brought their creative interpretations of the book into a live performance. I lined up in front of the classroom alongside the students of Room 13. A student was waiting at the front of the room, and asked me to put my boleto into his ticket box. “Boletos please”, said the student as he collected the tickets from the class. After I gave him my ticket, he instructed me to sit in the last row. Everyone was seated in the audience, eager to see their peers act out Where’s Walrus?. I was equally as excited. As the teacher drew the curtain, the narrator began storytelling in Spanish. Two main actors took the stage, portraying two characters: one, a security guard relentlessly searching for a walrus that escaped the zoo, while the other played as a walrus cunningly camouflaging itself to elude the guard’s detection.
