Sunday, 22 March 2015

ordinary magic: ice inquiry, part 3


Undulating frozen waves extend out well past the shore. The sound of water moving underneath this is eerily beautiful.

It's been a full month since I last sat down to write about the ongoing ice inquiry in our class. As I had described it in my last post, our students "were beginning to explore ice as a material, a phenomenon, and as a medium of artistic expression." Indeed, ice became a way for so many ideas to be expressed among a group of students whose fascination for the material rivals my own. As is the case in a large class with a curiosity-driven curriculum, ideas cycle around as groups of students follow their own projects, inspire others to join in or take over, or a new student moves into class and wonders about the documentation around the room. Our big ideas keep surfacing though the play keeps changing, a bit like fat that rises from a bubbling broth. Both inside the class and everywhere outside, ice has continued to be a fascination for many students. While at home on my own or with my kids, I've continued to explore the incredible scenes along the nearby shore as the ongoing deep freeze in February stretched into March and the local bay froze entirely for over a week. I was saddened by reports of starving animals and injured water birds, all affected by the intense cold for weeks without a thaw. I was fascinated by the daily changes along the beach where enormous ice waves formed, broke, and reformed into fantastical Dr. Seuss-like landscapes. I continued to collect interesting artifacts I found to share at school: icicles I harvested from the beach pictured above, frozen treasures such as apples or feathers found encased in ice, photos of winter scenes that made me wonder (such as the cluster of feathers below).


Ducks working to keep a patch of water open over the frigid nights: life-and-death ice inquiry.
Thousands of glittering shards of ice.
A photo I took to share with the class. Soft downy feathers frozen to the ground. Great for inferring... ouch!

As the calendar now indicates spring is here (hard to believe while the temperature hovers near the freezing mark), I get ready to head back to school after the March Break. Pooneh and I had ended our last week looking around our classroom, talking about what interests were fading and which new inquiries might develop as the indoor and outdoor environment change with spring. A few warm days before our break created a muddy puddle-wonderland on the schoolyard, one we explored whole-heartedly on the last day of school. I doubt anyone went home fully dry that afternoon. The laughter and exclamations of "Wow, look at this!" could be heard all across the yard. We followed rushing rivers of melted snow as they curved along the pavement to a drain. We found sticky mud that threatened to pull off our boots. We learned, again, that winter boots are great for snow but generally lousy at keeping water out. I wonder if that brief "big melt" will see an end to the interest in ice, if the wet and muddy landscape of early spring will lend itself to further exploration of water in its warmer form.


Last month I wrote about how our tweeted communication with Kelly Wright's class K1 Wonders helped us clarify our own thinking about "ideas" and spurred several students into creating a centre in the room where they could plan and create their own inventive ice sculptures. I ended the post with these words: 
"Our collaboration grew to include several classes and teachers whose communication with us helped our ideas grow. Indeed, the word "inspire" became a concept that spread to all we do in room 109. But that is a story for another post."
Here is that story. It begins with a tweet from a teacher I admire, Aviva Dunsinger. Note: the response led in so many directions I captured what I could using the storify app. To see some of the related tweets shared with our families and followers, see: "Ideas about ideas: How our small group exploration of ice sculptures grew into a much bigger inquiry into ice, planning, learning from others, and metacognition."

 I was touched by her comment but even more I was curious to know what the students would say, considering our previous conversations about where ideas come from. I shared her message during our morning meeting, and immediately students began to ask questions and make connections.

A collage we shared with families and followers in response to Aviva's tweet.

Aviva read our responses, including the ones collected in the collage above, and responded with questions and more ideas for us to think about. Note: we included our friends in @kinderwonders when we responded to Aviva, because they had been a part of our discussions about where ideas come from.




The next day at school we read Aviva's questions and comments about inspiration and documentation, and it lead to another great conversation about what it is we do when we share our ideas with each other. I was particularly thrilled to hear a student say her mom looked up the meaning of the word "inspiration" at home. Our families are such wonderful supporters of the learning that emerges from our class community. Below is just a sampling of what was said. I remember we talked for a while about the meaning of "documentation" before I managed to grab my clipboard and start recording what was said.




 Over the day I mulled over the connections students made when we discussed inspiration. I thought of how often Pooneh and I used a book, an artifact or image to inspire students. We do it all the time,  but shining a light on our thinking made me think of my own inspirations. For creative interaction with ice, two artists come to mind. Andy Goldsworthy, whose ephemeral creations have helped me inspire students to explore natural materials for many years now including his works using ice and snow. In the last post I shared how AC was inspired by Goldsworthy's tree spiral to try her own "glued ice sculptures" both at home and then at school. The second artist is my friend Ranjit, whose creativity never fails to amaze me. He is first and foremost a sound artist, creating sonic wonder, but I can't help but admire the visual beauty of his works as well. I have been making "noisy melting sculptures" for a few years now, so this intersection of #iceinquiry and inspiration seemed the perfect time for me to go back to the source. I knew I had to show the class the photo that started it for me.

A playful ice sculpture made by Ranjit.

I brought the pieces together at a morning meeting by reflecting aloud on how we had talked about inspiration, and how it happens in our class all the time. As soon as I flashed the photo on the screen, there was a buzz of excited chatter in the group.





Now all of this talk about inspiration was happening against a perfect backdrop: February 4th was "Global School Play Day" or #GSPD, a celebration of how play-based learning leads to big ideas and collaborative learning in classrooms like ours. We had been preparing for the day, talking about what it means, and also viewing short video clips about play in classrooms of all ages. My favourite focus of the movement is summed up in the quote they use as their motto:
"You can discover more about a person in an hour of play than in a year of conversation"   - Plato
To be able to share how inspiration helps us, and then watch it unfold during play, was rewarding. The conversation about ideas just kept spirally around, widening to include more students and more ideas. Many big ideas were explored over the day, including light and shadow, body balance, balance of materials, simple machines (ramps), materials that change (ice and snow). My interest was piqued by two girls who disagreed about the value of play (included in the collage below).

AV: Play doesn't make you smart, only work makes you smart. You have to sit and write.
JP: Wait! We got smarter when we played with the blocks and we made the tower better together.


Now that is a conversation worth having with families, teachers, the whole school community... inspired by Global School Play Day and our philosophical talks about how we learn.



Days like this, when so many students have a light in their eyes and a fire in their bellies to go explore an idea, these days I say we have raised windhorse together.


Inspiration had become a part of the culture of our classroom. The next day, while students were again exploring body balance (as inspired by Steven Jepson's video shared for GSPD), ES saw AL fix a balance beam that he'd knocked over. He stood looking at AL for a moment, then it seemed as if a lightbulb went on over his head.



Our first musical ice experiments involved lots of metal "junk" loose parts, such as the keys we had spotted in Ranjit's version. Many plans were drawn and sculptures began to fill the freezer or the space just outside our doorway. Signs asking our fellow kindergarten classes with whom we share our yard went up: "Please don't touch!" and the universal "NO!" hand sign. 


Students hushed to listen for the next "clang!" of something falling from the melting sculpture.

AV looking closely, carefully documents all the elements she sees in the experiment.




Many tweets and vines went out that day, with students asking us to share their drawings or take pictures of their favourite angle of the melting ice. Students were delighted later to find that Ranjit was likewise inspired by our playful experimenting.



AC was so inspired by Ranjit's video of the "glaciophone" she quickly drew up exactly what she'd need to recreate her own, but also added her artistic touch by including colour for the ice bars. This is engaged learning from a JK student.

AC's ice bars and a few more ice experiements, fresh from the freezer.

The beautiful result of the ice bars "glaciophone".


Meanwhile, our excited sharing was beginning to catch others' attention, both in the schoolyard and in classes we follow on twitter. We were inspiring others with our ice inquiry. We were beginning to see exactly how big an idea can get, by sharing it and opening our minds to new ideas, daily.


I was impressed that this student made a prediction about what would happen... to another class's ice experiment! We tweeted her a response to say how we liked her observation and prediction. It led to a good conversation, and their following tweet (below) inspire several students to include new materials seen in their pictures, such as buttons and feathers.



Our class continues to have great communication with our friends in KI Wonders, so this tweet made just about everyone sit up a little straighter and smile at our welcome circle.


Another friend had shown her class some of our tweets, and they sent us this message:


EW, a part of the ice inquiry projects as far back as November, was thrilled to help out by offering a new idea to their class. She carefully wrote up plans, not for her this time, but for their class to try. Procedural drawing in Kindergarten. We do that, too.



Another wonderful thread developed when I was chatting with educator friends about ice inquiries developing in their classrooms. This wasn't seen by our class (or families because I was using my own twitter at the time), but I knew I had to share these images with AC, who so loved Andy Goldsworthy's technique for building with icicles. 


When a tweet like those above came through, I shared them with the students whose creations had prompted the others to respond. There were many more, with the students commenting back and forth about what they saw in their peers' creations, comparing and offering words of encouragement to each other. (those below are included in the larger storify link).




Just down the hall, indeed at the far end of our large Kindergarten pod, Ms. Duric and Ms. Azzopardi's class were also exploring the beauty of ice as an instrument. We found these intriguing hanging bars outside one day when we went outside. I was most impressed by how gentle and respectful these students were, even as they were fascinated by what they found. Also online, their class tweets were showing a similar fascination with #iceinquiry. Several video clips caught my eye and I shared them with the core group of ice inquiry experimenters.



As can be seen from this long list yet small glimpse into the entirety of ice inquiry, freezing water and observing it can lead to some unexpected learning for all involved. Indeed, when our class welcomed Miss Shazia (an ECE student completing her practicum teaching in our class for two months) looked around for ideas for an invitation, she naturally included the ongoing inquiry into her plans.

This story seems far from over, knowing how our big ideas keep circling around and around in class and reemerging in new interests. I can imagine how melting will continue to fascinate as the warm weather comes and frees up the yard and frozen creek. I can only end by repeating what I said in the storify version:
 Aviva, I can't thank you enough for sparking the use of the word "inspire" in our class. You inspire us, and all the other classes and teachers in this part of our #iceinquiry story, you make our learning so much more interesting!


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Sunday, 22 February 2015

ordinary magic: ice inquiry, part 2

Last week I began to tell the story of why ice has meant so much to the learning journey in our class this year and over several years. Before I sat down to write that post, I'd spent much of the weekend exploring the magnificent ice formations growing along the shore near my home, because the temperature at the time was in the -20 range with windchill values nearing -40. The deep freeze continued this week in school, thus we had several days indoors when the extreme cold meant outdoor recess was cancelled. By Friday, I couldn't wait to get outside and see the shore again. This weekend we've had snow, so much that the landscape is mostly white with trees, rooftops and field covered in white. Nearby Etobicoke Creek still flows under thick ice but it's nearly impossible to see.


The beach disappears as the deep cold (-39 windchill) freezes waves into undulating shapes on the shore.
This crack was the only sight of the wide creek rushing below the ice and snow.


Back in the warmth at home, I thought about how our students got to where we are now, thinking deeply about how we learn. The year began with learning about our bodies, including our own "Best Part of Me" book. This is our first year of FDK at Thornwood PS, so there was new learning for all of us: the returning senior students who'd only had me for half-day Kindergarten last year, the new junior students for whom all school was new, for my wonderful teaching partner Pooneh who was new to Peel Board (and who I wrote about in a previous post), and for me, learning to share the learning with a teaching partner. We weren't sure what inquiries might develop early on, so we both spent time getting to know our students through shared play and through group invitations. Much of our first month was spent outside, using a skill the seniors remembered well: "looking closely" at our environment to learn about what lives in our schoolyard. As our class began to settle into the new routines, Pooneh and I often split our large group into two, each taking half of the students to do a smaller circle exploration of materials or a read-aloud. Her ECE expertise was quickly evident to me as she created many sensory invitations to hone in on understanding particular parts of our bodies and our traditional "five senses".

This book inspired us to create our own book of our"best part" pictures and stories.


From there we rather naturally moved into health, both body and mind. Perhaps because so many of our inquiries flowed out of ongoing explorations, much overlap has occurred from project to project. Current inquiries such as body balance certainly link back to that first month's look at our bodies and what we love to do. The ongoing ice projects are certainly about the mysterious properties of frozen water and other materials through the lens of scientific exploration, but a secondary aspect of the long interest in one project is the way some students are developing metacognition about learning, perspective, and ideas. Ice continues to motivate deep thinking and joyful engagement in our class. In part 1, I shared my own fascination with water in winter, and then how #iceinquiry began to unfold this year in class in late fall. I left off with a collaborative inquiry between our class @109ThornKs and my friend Kelly Wright's class @KinderWonders which inspired our students to incorporate colour into their designs. Kelly had continued to explore this with her class during that last week of school in December. What delighted me was to see how our collaboration was inspiring some pretty incredible thinking among her students as well.


This spark happened right before the winter holiday break. I wondered as the holiday began if the interest in ice projects would fade away, with gifts of new toys and movies seen with family sure to bring new ideas to our conversations. Not ready to move on from the exciting observations about ideas and learning that came up when our students commented on @KinderWonders creations, I brought a new book to share when we returned in January. The funny thing was, we didn't even open the book and read it, because the conversation that flowed once we looked at the cover was too rich! We saved reading to allow the students to share all the ideas bursting forth.

The story was captured in tweets by both myself and my partner Pooneh, as we share the @109ThornKs twitter stream. See the exciting week that unfolded when we asked: "What are ideas and how do we get them, anyway?" Note: some collages included in the slideshow are repeated in this post, as reading the small print can be difficult in the embedded storify below.








Lime ice - a sensory delight that scented the room.

Drawing plans and preparing sculptures for the freezer.

Now seemed a natural time to explore ideas, thinking, and inspiration. The collages below (also included in the storify slideshow above but repeated here for larger viewing to read the print) represent an attempt to capture all the new directions our body and mind, and our ice inquiries were going to expand. When I look back at this documentation, I see what I was missing back in 2010 when I directed the students to all do a drawn and written response to our ice experiment. These days, I try to always let students know that next steps come from them, while ensuring time to reflect on what has happened and to ask questions generating new ideas. This has allowed me to see the students as capable learners whose curiosity and insight is the most important resource in planning experiences.






What emerged from the conversation about "ideas" was incredible: thanks to the spark shared by JP at our welcome circle, the new way for students to create sculptures included drawing (and writing) detailed plans including the materials and tools needed for the project. When so many plans were drawn and created we ran out of space in the freezer, a space on the board was created, dedicated to "tomorrow's projects". It wasn't yet cold enough outside to use the yard for our ice projects. That would come soon enough. We also spun off into studying "brain food" due to the comment "fish is good for our brains", which lead a small group of students to join Pooneh in the library to conduct research into brains and ideas. On another level, we were learning how to conduct research, looking closely at information texts to glean what we could from words and pictures. This skill is one that our students will carry with them for life, and it emerged (as it often does) from deep interest in a topic that arises during a class conversation.





The emergence of several new inquiries in our class in January (including a fire truck project sparked by the local Fire Fighters' visit to our school and an interesting look at gender and identity through toys) meant that the ice projects went hiatus for a few weeks. The learning thus far would have been enough for me to conclude that it was one of our biggest inquiries of the year. When it reawakened, however, the excitement surprised even me. Our collaboration grew to include several classes and teachers whose communication with us helped our ideas grow. Indeed, the word "inspire" became a concept that spread to all we do in room 109. But that is a story for another post.




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Monday, 16 February 2015

ordinary magic: ice inquiry, part 1

This morning I walked along the shore near my home, looking to spend some time on the beach conducting my own survey as part of the annual "Great Backyard Bird Count". I also wanted to see the beach in the brilliant sunshine. I knew the deep freeze this week would bring more fantastical ice sculptures where the lake's waves, whipped up by yesterday's terrific winds, would crash into the shore and splash up to the trees and rocks all along the edge. Sure enough, today was spectacularly beautiful. I've been thinking about writing a post about ice for some months now, but just as I think it's slowing down enough for me to sum up the wonderful winter explorations thus far, new sparks emerge and students take the #iceinquiry in a new direction. In fact, it's been about a year that I've been mulling over writing about ice as a material worthy of deep study. This has kept the post in draft form, as I tried to figure out when it was exactly that I fell in love with the ephemeral, unpredictable substance. My first thought was to look at my older photos, from the first years we moved out to Long Branch from our old downtown Toronto neighbourhood. Winter on the beach, bringing with it great rafts of winter ducks not seen until the snow flies, also brings unique scenes of beauty like the two below. Once I discovered that a windy day would dress the willows, or how gentle waves would form into an incredible variety of shapes at the water's edge, I couldn't wait for the temperature to drop each year. Imagine the sound of those icy willow branches, tinkling together in a light wind. Picture the water lapping up over the clear baubles, making the organic shapes disappear and reappear every few moments. It is a place of wonder.



I noticed today that my first blog post was graced with an image from the beach, icicles reflecting off of the water that kept rising up to meet them. The end of 2013's dramatic ice storm likewise brought me out with my camera, carefully slipping along the sheer sidewalks and ever wary of the heavily-laden tree branches overhead, creaking and bending under the weight of several days' worth of freezing rain. It was frightening to travel in the neighbourhood right after the storm, but I couldn't resist the beauty of the world looking bejewelled.

Back in the spring of 2010 I was teaching in an AM & PM Kindergarten in Brampton. At R.J. Lee we had a meandering creek in a tree-lined ravine, right next to our school grounds. I often took my classes for walks through the ravine path, and more often that not we gathered interesting natural materials along the way. Sometimes these leaves, pine cones, stones or other objects would become items in small world play or added to random loose parts in our nature area. I'm not sure what gave me the idea, but I suggested to the AM class that we create a sculpture out of our findings. We popped them all in a pie plate, wound ribbon through the middle, and put them in the freezer. The afternoon class, upon hearing about our project, asked if they could create one as well. I didn't know what we would do with them once frozen, but I was delighted by their initiative and so we also went for a gathering walk and made another sculpture.

Here are some scenes from my classroom that week in March. I realize now that although I wasn't using the term "look closely", this was one of the first co-created projects that really invited students to look closely, make observations and predictions (about what would happen, which item would melt out first) and plan further investigations. I admit I had a laugh looking back when I saw the response page I created for students so that they would draw, label and write an observation (I didn't ask them for an observation in fact, but instead left a space for only one possible response: "melted"). In the intervening years my approach to teaching and learning has changed. I suppose my own learning about students has changed me each year, and I can't think of any time I wasn't adjusting my lessons, my routines, or my idea of what was meaningful to early learners. In any case, looking at these photos, I see I still expected each student to complete a response on paper. I invited them to capture what they saw before it melted away. I loved how some students captured the action, showing drips in their drawing, while others focused on the colours or shapes within. My way of framing the task (draw what you see, label) is still very much a practice in our class now, though it is a choice to participate. In this project, I was still the one making the decisions about what we learned and how it should be shared. I regret what was lost by not getting those students to talk about their own ideas and write a sentence based on their observations, their aha's, or their ideas for new projects. Seeing that flourish in our class this year, I wonder what might have happened if I had then asked: "So, what would you like to try to create next time? What do you think might happen?"

                                



I was taken with the interest and engagement of nearly every student. They were investigating the same materials which they had collected, but were now much more interesting simply because they were suspended in ice. So that weekend I made a sculpture at home with my daughter who'd just turned three. We used pampas grass, an insect gall, sumach and cedar, pine cones and needles. My girl was delighted and danced around the little garden, admiring the ice sculpture from many angles, even swinging it so it would "twang" against the metal rails. She caught drips on her hands, on leaves, and in her mouth. She asked for a stick so she could reach it from the walkway, and tried putting fallen items back into the sculpture when they dropped. She was showing me the way to true emergent curriculum, exploring with all her senses and not waiting to be told how or why or what. I saw how much more there was to see in a simple circle of ice.




Recently, while visiting my parents up at my family home, I mentioned some of the ongoing ice projects in our class. My mom reminded me that my fascination with ice began long before I moved to Long Branch, long before I had my own children to dazzle with our beach's magical transformation in winter or little projects. At home where I grew up, we had a small but deep pond. Summers were spend swimming or dangling our feet off of a floating dock, inviting the many goldfish within to "nibble" at our toes. Winters we spent shoveling the pond clean of snow so we could skate. One year when I was young, my mom found a goldfish frozen in the ice. She cut a chunk out of the surface (my sister remembers her using an ax for the job) and brought the block of ice inside. We placed it in a large tank with cold water and waited. The fish thawed, began to swim, and became a family pet. That fish, "Saratoga" (so named by my sister who wanted to name it for the colour of the crayon "Sarasota Orange") became a family story much-shared with visitors who admired the tank or the pond. I also remember waiting for the pond to thaw each spring, and watching as the fish began to stir under the ice, showing through the thin sheet like glowing orange lights under glass.

So with this fascination of mine for the ephemeral beauty and mystery of ice, I have used it as an invitation for learning often in the last few years. This year it started early in the fall during our explorations of various senses while learning about our bodies. Pooneh made several trays full of ice cubes so that each student could have their own cubes to feel and explore. There was much squealing around our long banquet table as the ice melted, slipped off of plates, chilled fingers and cooled tongues.



In November we had quite a lot of gathered materials from our outdoor explorations around the yard and around the school neighbourhood. I wondered aloud if anyone would like to use some of the 'tree gifts" to make an ice sculpture. GS and JE, both senior students who remembered the ice projects we'd done last year, jumped at the chance. I gave them the recycled vegetable tray and twine. GS asked for a bottle for water, and JE went about adding pine cones, bark and acorns. Another student added a dried apple we'd found under a nearby tree, and an oak leaf. GS estimated how much water she would need and cut the twine to her liking, and we popped it in the freezer. Thus began first hanging project of the year.

Remembrance Day. GS creates her own ice project while ES looks on.

The next day, we retrieved the ice sculpture and hung it near the window where we could watch it drip and spin in the light. GS helped to remove the sections from the tray, but then became interested in another project elsewhere and left me to suspend it over a tub. Students who hadn't noticed her create it yesterday were drawn to the sight of the ice chunks, all dangling in a line. Clipboards and markers were brought over from the nearby "look closely" centre, and students began to draw what they saw. I was delighted by this spontaneous response. As the first few items fell, a game of prediction was born: "The pine cone is next", "No, this leaf is going to come out".  One boy, RR, spend a long while collecting drips on his hands and on a magnifier, counting each one and guessing which ice chunk would release the next drip. The sculpture melted bit by bit over the morning, but we gathered it back into the tray, topped off with a little water, and returned it to the freezer before we headed outside to play.


Many students visited the dripping sculpture over the morning.
 "The apple is cold". "This one is loose! It's going to fall next".

Most interesting to me was the way that two girls, ZS and JP, drew their observations. Looking at the same thing, they drew entirely different diagrams, each very detailed. I asked them if I could share their drawings with the class at the next day's welcome circle, so that I could highlight the way they both captured important details so distinctly. The conversation sparked many more students to examine the sculpture, hung in the window once again but dripping faster this time as the sun shone in the windows. Many more students added observational drawings to the collection which we wound up hanging on the wall to share with visitors.


Below are the collages we shared with our families and followers on the class twitter. The drawings sparked an interesting conversation the next morning, about how we can look at the same things in the world but notice different aspects. It was our first real large discussion about perspective and ideas, a topic that continues to arise in the months since this day. It also sparked many more drawings by other students inspired to take a look at the ice and use their own perspective.







To see the story as it was tweeted out that week, simply follow the thread from the first day. In the thread are images and vine videos of the process of creation, exploration, and reflection.

Now at the same time that the hanging sculpture was generating interest in indoor ice projects, it was beginning to chill outside as well. That week we saw some snow flurries and found puddles which froze overnight. Many little projects sprung up, including a repeat project from last year, our "weather bottle" inquiry which was remembered by several students who were then juniors in our class. Those sparks led to interesting projects, but I'll save those for another post. The next chapter in the hanging ice inquiry story began when we got a tweet from our friends in nearby Clarkson PS, @KinderWonders. They had admired our story and used it as inspiration for their own ice project. I was delighted. Last year this same class had sparked a long-lasting collaborative inquiry between our two classes when they commented on a building project going on in our room. The critical thinking that became evident as students pored over the pictures coming in from the other class was astonishing, and worthy of a post of its own. So, wondering what might come of it, I showed my teaching partner Pooneh and we agreed to show the tweet (seen in the top corner of the collage, below) to the class. The collage shared what we managed to capture of a larger discussion. Our students were inspired and excited to try something new.





It is hard to capture the excitement that has developed out of this initial month of ice inquiry. Students have become aware of their own perspective when making observational drawings. They have begun to create elaborate plans, both in drawing and written form (prompted by Pooneh and I when we were overwhelmed by the requests for more and more materials and more space in the freezer). They make connections to earlier attempts and make increasingly more accurate predictions about the results of their personal or shared experiments. This is only the beginning of our ice inquiries this year. More will follow in part 2.



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Saturday, 15 November 2014

On becoming two





I have been thinking for a while about a way to introduce my wonderful teaching partner, ECE Pooneh Haghjoo. This year has been fast-paced and action-packed, much more than any year since perhaps my first year of teaching (hence a long time since my last post). Although in some ways this year has been the most difficult in memory, with issues and events popping up to complicate the usually busy but joyous job of teaching, I've had many moments of looking over at my partner and thinking: "How did I get so lucky?" Transitioning to FDK has come with many challenges, and not the parts that I anticipated being difficult: the project-based learning from following children's inquiries that our school board and our Ontario curriculum document support is a big part of our K team's culture. Learning to work around sharing the yard throughout the day with 3 other classes and more planning times to consider, more kids/less materials/equipment/space with large classes, among other items on the learning curve. Not difficult this year: finding a way to share the space I'd made my home over the last two years. I'd been told it can be something like a marriage, in that two people share intimate quarters, materials, kids and important responsibilities. I imagined I would be hard to work with: I'm always making plans based on kids' interests and questions, then throwing those plans (and assembled materials/provocations) away or aside when a more powerful learning experience comes up. I've so many loose threads on the go, like my browser which always has at least 5 tabs open... I'm not the calm, quiet one in the room. I'm excited about life and learning. I'm passionate about the environment as third teacher and learner collaboration as the key to inquiry. I'm also loud, often provoking students with musical or noisy invitations to play. I'm happier outside than in, especially because I believe I see the true personality of children when all of their senses are fully engaged in learning, which is much more possible outdoors in every season.

Over the summer I engaged in losing myself in the big, beautiful outdoors with my family. The growth in my kids, especially over our 2 weeks visiting family and friends in BC (shared in this earlier post), was incredible to me. So it was with some trepidation that I returned to school where we were entering our first year of FDK and me not knowing my partner's name or anything about him or her.

In some ways, it was not unlike moving schools like I did three years ago when I left RJ Lee PS in the north after eight years in the same spacious Kindergarten classroom. My commute was a long one but it was hard to leave a community, both my colleagues and the families of students, some of whom had two and three siblings join my class over my time there. I fell in love with the people, but also fell in love with the tree-lined creek that snaked past the school on our north boundary. Walks along the path were "trips to the jungle" and "forest adventures" to my students. We saw cotton-tail rabbits, geese and mallards aplenty, and even a pair of wood ducks one summer day. We went often to "visit our ducklings" every spring. And watched them grow from fuzzy yellow balls that "peep!" through the awkward fuzz and feather stage, always running after "mama duck". We peeked at the school through breaks in the leaf cover, and felt like no one could see us. Leaving RJ Lee was difficult for all the reasons mentioned above, but for me, having grown up in the countryside with a swimming pond and forests to wander in, leaving the little piece of wild behind was really hard. I couldn't imagine finding anything like it anywhere again.

It's not that different for our students, coming to our classes as their first experience of school. What will it be like? Will I make friends? Will it be safe? Will I have fun? Will I know what to do? Moving to Thornwood PS, I was delighted to discovery it was bordered by Cooksville Creek, and that it has the unique "no-mow zone" wild learning area just across the field from our classroom windows (described in this post). Likewise, while I was eagerly anticipating finally joining FDK, I was full of doubts and questions. Last year I had asked Tessa Heffernan, (a PLN friend whose outlook on the learner as capable always shines through in her writing) if she would share what makes her partership with Holly Diljee such a rich and rewarding relationship for the both of them. I was so touched by the obvious love and respect in the post, and it both inspired and worried me. How likely was it for me to be placed with someone who I could see eye-to-eye with on daily matters and big ideas? Tessa's words below, taken from her guest post (see here) really summed up what I had found with the OCT team at Thornwood over the last year, and what I really hoped would be possible with our new ECE partners.
A Joint Philosophy
I’m going to be honest and say that we simply lucked out when it came to similar philosophies.  We both are huge proponents of open-ended materials and activities, uncovering the curriculum through play, emergent learning, a natural and warm environment, choice, supporting and promoting self-regulation, building relationships and teaching skills as opposed to discipline, and making developmentally appropriate decisions.  These goals allow us to constantly focus on the ‘why’ behind our decisions.  If a school-wide activity comes up, we make a decision about participation based on our philosophy.  If we are considering a provocation or activity, we think about how it fits or does not fit with our programming.  If children are taking part in an “outside of the box” exploration, we generally ask ourselves two questions:  1. Are the children being safe?  2.  Are the materials being respected?

It's hard to believe now, only a few months in to our time sharing a classroom, but I feel like Tessa's words ring true for me in so many ways. Pooneh has a wealth of experience as a teacher first (back in Iran) but also ECE experience in Canada with early years teaching, mostly with toddlers. Her obvious love of the students is clear to all: our parents, students, and all staff at Thornwood. Her way of reading students' body language and participation to know when it's time to change our routine, our set-up or even simply the story being read aloud? She is a consummate teacher, always listening carefully to the students, looking closely for themes emerging that she can extend. She is patient with young students who say: "I can't" even when they very likely can. She is as fascinated with the way kids think (including their interesting wrong conclusions to experiences) as I am, which belies a powerful belief in kids as capable learners with gifts and ideas of their own. She is patient with allowing students to struggle when it will lead to greater understanding, but also willing to help when a tired child is past their ability to persevere. In short, Pooneh embodies the model of scaffolding learning in her approach to teaching. I wound up with a partner as solidly convinced about the rightness of emergent curriculum as I am.

Her sense of humour lifts me when I'm frustrated with some mundane issue after a busy day. Her joyful embrace of experiential learning, the aspect of a partner I was most worried about? It shines through in her words, actions, and daily documentation of our students learning together. At first I wasn't sure how to add a second user to our class twitter page, so I would simply retweet her posts onto our class page (as some of those I've included here). Now that we share the account as authors, I find myself looking at our page and grinning when I see a new post of a moment I witnessed from across the room (while I was engaged with other students) or often not present for (while one of us takes a group for walks as the other teacher remains in the kindergarten yard with students using outdoor equipment). I appreciate how she sees the growth of individual children as well as the bigger ideas unfolding in their play within groups. It makes me think of how rich our reports and interviews will be, looking at the wealth of observation and documentation she brings. I love the way she captures the joy on the students' faces: though we obscure faces to protect student privacy, the grins are evident in photos of experiences inside and out of the classroom. I also grin when I see a post "faved" by our own account, knowing Pooneh has just come across something I shared that she finds delightful.

Below are just a sampling of tweets that show the joyful learning that my partner has captured this year.
September 17th was "International Flip a Rock Day" and I knew whatever else came our way, I had a partner who saw the value of free exploration outdoors. 

"Look Closely" truly became the culture of my classroom last year when I was still 1/2 day (and thus no teaching partner at the time). It was obvious pretty quickly that Pooneh sees the magic in the littlest moments, too.

The above tweet shows one of Pooneh's many projects undertaken to answer a question or spark from one of the children. It may have grown out of this noticing by several children much earlier on. (tweet below).

One of Pooneh's many invitations for students to explore materials using their senses.

 No explanation (of above tweet) necessary.


Pooneh and the kids playing under the oaks.
 Moments of exploration that resonate for me with the
inquiry-learning approach as outlined in "Worms,
Shadows and Whirlpools".

Earlier week, Pooneh brought a child-sized table and chairs for the classroom, and yesterday she invited students to help her wash it and restore the loose trim with glue. A group of students jumped at the chance to help. I missed almost all of it as they were working away in the cubby area while I was working with others in the classroom, in particular capturing moments at the ice inquiry table we'd set up near the windows. Later that day I smiled when I saw this:

I captured these four girls playing with Pooneh in the cubby while waiting to be picked up at the end of the day: "We are drumming on the table that we worked so hard to clean" say JP and EW (click for vine clip).

Another delightful moment in the day occured during our long "Play & Learn" block in the morning. Students playing with the medical tools from the class "Veterinary Kit" decided to take care of Pooneh instead of animals or other student patients. I wonder now if it was because of the morning conversation at welcome circle when she shared she wasn't fond of the cold weather. She waved at me, holding her "prescription" from one girl: a trip to the beach was the doctor's order. More prescriptions followed.
I know that our story has just begun, and that much learning will occur before the year is over. I have much to learn from my partner and it is still early enough in the year that we continue to tweak our schedule and environment in order to meet our students' learning needs... but I am confident that from now on, classroom stories will be "our stories". I am extremely grateful for my partner. From there, much is possible.

Addendum: when I see the way all the Kindergarten classes have grown over the last few quick months, I'm truly pleased that our new ECE partners are equally on board with the adventure of child-lead, play-based learning as our OCT team are. I often fave tweets from both ECEs and class accounts (some are sharing account like Pooneh and I now do, other classes retweeting from ECE as we did) and I'm delighted at the rich conversations taking place between classes and over lunch in the staff room. Though our school experienced a painful loss this fall that touched us all (deeply felt in Kindergarten), our team is so full of passionate teacher/learners that I expect we'll continue to meet all challenges as a family. I feel incredibly fortunate to work with my Thornwood PS colleagues.

Nothing without Joy - Loris Malaguzzi


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