This week students were official members of the BiFocal Detective Agency and so it was time to get to work! In their board meeting, they heard of the cases that had been closed in the week that passed. The monsters that had been caught included Whereicus Putitus, Hideous Iticous, Whateus Isthatsmellitus, and Allus Goneus. The monster examples were from the artist book "Monsters of a Household Variety" by artist Ruth Ashton. These monsters acted as an inspiration for the students to think about their own cases, and get them to think creatively about seemingly
ordinary events. After the board meeting was adjourned, students went out to take field notes within their given "crime" scenes. While looking for both the obvious and the subtle clues within their sites, students enthusiastically added elements pulled from their imagination. The student to the right noticed these "footprints" on the sidewalk, and took note of the shape of the monsters foot as evidence. After sketching different elements from each of their scenes, the detectives returned inside to discuss and evaluate their findings. They then used their evidence to create landscapes of [The Scene of the Crime] for their tunnel books. The Detectives were up for the challenge, and even though they were surprised by the three week timeline, they accepted the multi-step process.
Tunnel books are not easy and Ashley did a great job breaking the process down into simple steps for the young detectives to follow. I assisted her and gave the students one on one attention to help them develop their ideas. Our opening activity was 2 truths and a lie and it took way too long. The students discovered I was Jazelle and Gracies mom and Isara, who is very eager to participated and dominates when its time to answer questions, wanted proof and kept bringing it up, saying she didn't believe. It got rather annoying for both me and my children, because this is something that happens to us often, and to Ashley who was trying to move the lesson along.
ReplyDeleteHow come my children don't look like me was the question. I guess we can chalk it up to the students learning about diversity and opening their minds.