Week one...

It’s always kinda amazing how fast summer seems to fly by, but I was excited and ready to be getting back to school this year.

Our first week back is usually about introductions and group projects; really focusing on orienting students around the idea of our class being a community and going about work collaboratively.

This year at Longfellow, we have a LOT of students - five teams in all: Kinders, 3rd, 4th, 5th and 6th graders. It’s a lot of fun to get to interact with so many different students, and as this is my fourth year at this particular site, it’s also fun to have worked with so many of the kids for four consecutive years - I appreciate being able to develop and maintain those relationships.

We got started with introducing the idea and nuts and bolts of journaling: the philosophy behind it, the emphasis on creativity, generating ideas and working through blocks, and the how to’s. Many students had already had us in previous years and were familiar with the journal aspect of our classes, and were able to excitedly plug right in. As I told the students, this is something we want them to come to enjoy: it’s rare that they get a chance to do anything that they want, no strings attached, and it helps them relax, vent, generate ideas and get much needed creative time.

The first project we jumped into this week were group murals. We do this by having students work collaboratively, in big groups, on large sheets of paper - rolling paper that is used for packaging is typically what we will use. Thematically, we asked students to first think about all the types of things they knew how to do, asking them to make a list even, for fun. Then, collaboratively, we asked them to depict those things on their mural, ideally showing how they could put their talents together. Overall, it went over pretty well - especially for their first activity since coming back!

Next up was the flower pot project - symbolically us ‘growing things together’ - it’s always popular. The kids like drawing on the pots, it’s a fun collaborative effort. We asked them to depict images of ecosystems, one of two words we learned, or ways that they could help their community. Younger students focused on doing a drawing of any type together.

Overall, a great start to our year - we are very excited about the weeks ahead. The first quarter is going to be about rooting students into the idea of voice, creativity, and community, and we have lots of cool projects to help them in that process!