it's a love story...

In educational circles, we talk a good talk about “higher level thinking skills.” But we’re not very good at assessing them. Maybe because we still think the goal of assessment is for kids to show us that they know what we taught them. What would it look like if what we really wanted from assessment was to find out what kids know in a more global way? What they understand, infer, and feel about things? What connections they make to other things they know? What they value?

What if it was my job, as a teacher, to get inside the little minds entrusted to me and figure out how they think about things?
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I teach grade one in a Catholic school, so of course the story of the Christian Nativity is a major focus in December. I read the kids dozens of different versions of it from a range of beautiful picture books, and from the Bible. Sometimes the story is told from different points of view (eg. that of one or more of the animals in the stable). Sometimes it is told in song. Sometimes it’s not a book, but a movie or a play. Sometimes it is taught and learned through puppets, nativity figures, and rituals.

At the end of it all, what do the kids understand about the Christmas story?

I asked them to draw a picture of the Jesus Christmas story (no Santa Clauses or reindeer), on the front of a Christmas card. I decided to assess their understanding simply by counting the number of characters, settings, and details in their pictures: five or more equalling full marks. It’s not the most comprehensive way of testing, but it is a quick measure of the complexity of their understanding. And it's open-ended.

More importantly than helping me quantify my student’s learning, it was a task that let me see this very old story through young and contemporary eyes. It allowed me to see how each child imagined the story, which is a measure of their reading/listening comprehension, but also of their insight.

From dictionary.com.

Here is some of what I saw. (Please read the captions.)

Two adults, one baby, one manger, one stable, one star
(and a moon!) = full marks.
Drawing ability doesn't need to be a factor in
demonstrating or assessing learning.

There was a long road, a big hotel, and a little stable.

Mary had a baby in a barn. She was not having fun!

Some people saw a big star.
They were amazed and scared.

They wore towels on their heads.
(Different place. Different time. Different fashions.)

The sun was out even though there were stars in the sky.
(Because there is always a sun in the top corner of a picture.)

People in the Bible have circles over their heads.

The Christmas story is a love story!

Note: This approach to assessment could be used with fables and fairy tales too ~ any story of which there are multiple renditions in multiple media. 

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radial weaving....

Following our exploration of natural dyes and wool, I came up with a simple weaving project for my Grade Ones.

Materials:
1 paper dessert plate -- approximately 7" in diameter
5 bundles of yarn -- for each bundle, I wrapped yarn around my hand approximately 12 times, then tied it off loosely

Prep in advance:
(1) Turn the plate over, trace a circle in the middle. I used a lid from a can of frozen juice concentrate. Mark it off in 11 roughly equal sections. (Any odd number greater than one will work, but 11 is what I used.) Cut from the edge of the plate to the circle you have drawn at the 11 points.

Method:
Start the first strand of yarn by inserting it through any one of the slots, with the "tail" sticking out the back (2). From there, it's just over, under, over, under, until you run out of yarn (3), (4), (5). I cautioned my kids to pull the yarn tight so it lies flat against the plate. Start the next colour the same way and continue until you have used all five strands of yarn.

My kids LOVED doing this project -- even the few kids I have who hate doing art. They begged for extra plates and yarn to take home to work on there. There's something satisfying about working with one's hands.

Follow-up:
I glued a second plate onto the back of the first plate to give it more strength and rigidity, as well as to cover up the messy loose ends. Attach a butterfly clip and use it to prop up the plates for display or hang them from  a wall.

Glue a second plate onto the back of the weaving.

Add a butterfly clip to the rim
of the plates to use as a
hanging device or to stand up the
plates on a level surface.

This could be a great lesson in odd and even numbers. An odd number of slits won't work because the yarn (weft) strands will keep crossing the same spokes (warp strands), leaving the other half of the spokes bare. You could challenge the kids to figure this out by cutting plates with different numbers of spokes, and letting them try them out to find out which ones work and which ones don't. Challenge them to identify the odd/even pattern.

For my class, because we're in a Catholic school, and because we were participating in creating and bringing in the gifts for our school-wide Resurrection Mass, we did this project using metallic gold plates. The empty inner circle of the plate represents the empty tomb, filled only with the light and the glory of God; the outer spokes its radiance outward from the centre. Corny, I know, but it worked.

Two of my students' weaving projects on the table in front of the altar
during our Resurrection Mass.