Last week, I was invited into the Grade 3 classrooms of Angela and Miriam. Both classes were working on a landform project made from paper plates, paint and various crafting materials. Angela told me it was going to be a fun, chaotic, and “potentially disastrous” activity. I don't take classroom invitations lightly, so I cleared my afternoon and joined them for the chaos.
Since both Grade 3 classes were working on the same project, the instructions were given in the hallway. Students were asked to build up details of a local landform on a paper plate they had painted in a previous class.
Landforms created by the students
What the students didn’t know was that Miriam had printed out dragons for them to place in their diorama! This was a clever tie-in to a recent story writing lesson that the students had done, where they wrote stories about dragons and included landforms in their stories. Now the students had a setting for their dragons!
Carlo
Natural Moment of Reflection 🌊
As the students were building, making, creating, and re-creating, I noticed that many of them were explaining their dioramas to each other. I grabbed Miriam and Angela and suggested that they set up a recording booth in the classroom so the students could jump on Seesaw and capture this natural moment of exploration, explanation, and reflection. So, I grabbed two IKEA dividers and headset microphones the school recently purchased and set up a teacher iPad at each station - one for each classroom. Within a few minutes, the booths were created!
Equipment used included IKEA felt dividers and Amazon headset microphones
We weren't sure how many kids would be willing to go record, but as we tapped a few kids on the shoulder and suggested it, more and more followed suit. Some jumped at the opportunity to talk out upcoming plans for their designs, while others went over to give an overall explanation of what they did and why. Not every student recorded, but that’s okay!
What I really loved about this was that the low pressure option to record made the choice more enticing to some students. At one point, I noticed a student peeking over at the booth as I set it up. This student had never shown interest in recording their voice in the past and has always deferred to writing or other modes of output. After a few kids recorded, they snuck a few more glances over, taking it all in. By the end of the class, I saw them sitting down at the booth ready to record. They recorded a super extensive video of themselves discussing which landforms they selected and how much work they put into creating it.
That brought such a big smile to my face! 🥰
Design School 🎨
Our favourite creative tool has updated their resources for teachers. Check out Canva for Education's Design School. It's your one stop shop for cheat sheets, lessons, and deep dives on various design tools.