Product: Concept sketches

Concept 1:
- Scenarios + flash cards (Game in a form of a book so that the child is free enough to choose their own location and as per location there will be activity cards.)
- e.g: Goosebumps, Choose your own ending.
- Interactive
- the flash cards can either stand alone as activity cards or can go with the book.
- Locations: Market place, classroom, bathroom, room, park, beach, forest, city.
- Each location will have a game within the bigger game.
- Can be played individual or in a team with players.
- Game directed through a mascot.

Concept 2:
- Normal activity flash cards about the subject. (something like facts+activity cards)
- portable and children can carry them everywhere.
- a larger group can play.
- Can be played with two or more people.

Concept 3:
- Story book plus activity.
- Individual
- Narrative about the subject with activities in it.

Concept 4:
- Board game e.g: Life
- 2-6 players, teams
- starting line-finish line
- Narrative.
- Sequential with rules.

Activity Structure

Learning through Creative play.

Article by Leah Mann editing assistance from Diana Coogle, Amy Williams and Ela Lamblin.

Learning and play can be simultaneous
At the New Horizons Conference, Lelavision will demonstrate the manifestation of this art process I just described in performance as well as provide experiential activities from our kinetic, aural, spacial and play-filled tool belt. Within our process of discovery and creation we have a motto: "Never let the fear of being bad at something stop you from trying!" We learn so much from our "mistakes," and often they become unexpected discoveries that feed and propel our work forward.

What does Ms. Frizzle of The Magic School Bus say? "Let's get messy, take chances, make mistakes!!!!" (And learn from them!) I'd like to think that this mentality could propel students through graduation!

When Ela and I teach residencies, we often ask the students, "If necessity is the mother of invention, what would you create?" Across the board, whether students are affluent or impoverished, the number one answer is "a money-making machine." Though children in our western society seem to think the solution to their problems is best solved by outside sources, all us educators have the great opportunity to encourage them to look inward, to use their brainpower and imagination, which is their best, most accessible tool.

The second most common reply is "a homework machine-- because schoolwork is no fun." But what if fun and learning were merged more often? When Ela was young, his father made a deal with him, saying "I won't buy you any toys, but I'll help you make whatever you want." This symbiotic learning/playing process has fostered a lifestyle based in a love of science, math, engineering and invention. That same creative and learning-based lifestyle blossoms into our performances and underscores our teaching. Using gestures and sounds, we teach physics. Using whole-body and group sentences, we teach grammar. Using students as the polyrhythmic equations, we teach math.

What will your doorway be?
You know the saying? "Give a person a fish and they eat for a day. Teach a person to fish and they eat for a lifetime." How can we teach our children to have the gumption to stand up to life with all its challenges with well developed skills in invention, creative problem solving, self-motivated learning / inquiry / discovery?

What if education was fun and everyone got to play? What if the joy of learning radiated from everyone in the classroom – teachers and students alike? Would students stay in school? Would they score just as well (or better!) on standardized tests? What if "creative spark" set afire the imagination to serve all subjects and "play" became a synonym for "learn"?

"Do what I say, not what I do"

Word Associations

I made the kids write down the first thing that came to their minds when they thought of these words.

Project zero

Project Zero's mission is to understand and enhance learning, thinking, and creativity in the arts, as well as in humanistic and scientific disciplines, at individual and institutional levels.

One of the projects i was looking at was the The Creative Classroom Project "Although most people might look for signs of creativity in the appearance of the bulletin boards, student made projects, centers, and displays in a classroom, I feel that the truly creative classroom goes way beyond what can be seen with the eyes. It is a place where bodies and minds actively pursue new knowledge. Having a creative classroom means that the teacher takes risks on a daily basis and encourages his/her students to do the same."
—Pann Baltz, 1993 ATA Teacher of the Year

In the project, we take the stance that creative teaching must build on a foundation of solid pedagogy. However, creative teaching is not merely a higher plateau of practice. Creative teaching requires a fundamental move out of a safe zone for the teacher. Therefore, creative teaching is not necessarily the next logical step beyond good teaching practices. We see creative teaching as more generative and responsive teaching rather than just more effective teaching. In the current climate of high-stakes testing and mandated curriculum, creative and innovating teaching is perhaps more important than ever as it keeps classrooms energetic places of learning.

Another project I was looking at was Artful learning
The program focuses on experiencing and appreciating art, rather than making art. There are two broad goals of the program: (1) To help teachers create rich connections between works of art and curricular topics; and (2) to help teachers use art as a force for developing students’ thinking dispositions.

The program takes the image of an artist’s palette as its central metaphor. Typically, a palette is made up of a relatively small number of basic colors which can be used and blended in a great variety of ways. The artful thinking palette is comprised of 6 thinking dispositions which emphasize intellectual behaviors such as asking provocative questions, making careful observations, exploring multiple viewpoints, and reasoning with evidence. These 6 dispositions are developed through the use of "thinking routines." Thinking routines are short, easy-to-learn mini-strategies that extend and deepen students’ thinking and become part of the fabric of everyday classroom life. They are used flexibly and repeatedly--with art, and with a wide variety of topics in the curriculum, particularly in language arts and social studies

What is the Method Iam using?

Meeting Standards through Integrated Curriculum by Susan.M.Drake and Rebecca.C.Burns
In this reading it is stated that there are three kinds of integrated curriculum: Multidisciplinary, Interdisciplinary and Trasndisciplinary. I realised that the method I am using is a mixture between Interdisciplinary and Transdisciplinary, at different stages. In the table below I have highlighted the different methods being used at various stages.

Puppetry Workshop with Varun

I went to Observe and contribute in a Puppetry Workshop in K.R Mangalam world school, conducted by Varun, a famous puppeteer in Delhi. He was teaching them how the make shadow puppets. Today he was teaching them interactions, dialogue, voice of the puppet and mechanism. It was really interesting to see the puppets the kids came up with. He divided them into teams of two and made them interact. He put scenarios and the had to dialogue with each other. The groups kept growing from two to four to six and it kept getting more interesting and chaotic at the same time. There were kids from class 5-7 so it was a mixed bunch. But the class 5 kids did not feel intimidated by the class 7 kids they were putting up a equally good fight. :)

Session 11 Class ||| C

Today's Session was very tough on the kids. I made them do something beyond their age and I realised it. In a way I was pushing them. The characters we made in class I made them come to life and taught them floods, earthquakes and storms through that. I made them feel like this. They sifted between the emotions of kind, calm, angry.
Explaining them that the characters could come alive was very difficult. I made them think as not a human but as the element personified which was very very tough for them to do. But they tried and didn't loose hope and used their brains. I made them think of the qualities of the person they drew and show them through their bodies. So, I made them think of the difference between a Kind wind and angry wind. So, what came out was Interesting, when the wind was kind it was Oxygen that helped all animals and humans, and when the wind was angry it was a storm blowing fiercely on these animals and humans. I though this was a very nice though.
The same way I made the water group and the earth group make their Characters come alive, but because the first group did a natural disaster when they were angry both the groups followed so one did floods and the other did earthquake. The earth group when the were kind made all the things walk on her and took everyone's weight. And water gave everyone water to drink in order to survive when he was kind.
With this exercise they started relating feeling and emotions with facts and really started things as if these elements were actual people. :) They are not used to working in a group so they are doing pretty well. From time to time when they get stuck I give them some pointers to just trigger their thinking because they are still small. :)
I was happy that by the end of the class at least the kids were trying.

*Next week on Wednesday and Friday we are having a fun activity of transforming the class. Taking from the reading Display and design. We are having a Chart Competition among the two classes on Air, Water and Earth.

Challenges

- One of my biggest drawbacks or challenges is that am connected to a school who thinks of this as EXTRA curricular activity rather than co-curricular activity. There are a lot of do's and dont's for the children., as compared to if I was to take individual workshops.
-Weather.Its been raining soooooo much in Delhi that my outside sessions have stopped.
- The children are very young and sometimes don't understand the instructions am giving them or its bizarre so they don't know how to react to the instructions. So the results am getting are limited.
- The exposure of the child is very limited, so I had to start at the very very basic level as opposed to doing these workshops in a progressive school where the kids are taught to think in a different way. In a way this is good as I am giving them this exposure
- I feel their creativity is limited and so is their imagination. Even in their art classes in school the child is not allowed to draw from imagination but has to copy what the teacher has drawn on the board.
- They are so used to being spoon fed and so used to structure that they cant come in and come out of it smoothly.
- They have no Grey in their lives everything is black or white, right or wrong there is no maybe. For instance if I tell them who told u the air s blue it can be pink also they think am joking or teasing them and they say "No how can it be, that is wrong."
- The curriculam is so cramped up even for subjects there is only half an hour allotted and they rush between syllabuses and the child cant retain anything and in the end just ends up mugging up for tests.
- To get them to do something right, either you have to grade them or make them do a competition where there is a prize in the end they are not used to doing things for themselves. They were very surprised to know that the drawings I was making them do I was not going to give them "Marks." So, they went wild. Whenever marks come they become "Formal" and "Right."

Session 10 Class |V D

Today after a really long time the weather was just right to take the session outside, It was neither too hot or raining.
It was not only a new experience for the students but also a new experience for Beatrice and me because we didn't know how they would react. I on the other hand was pretty sure that they would love it as kids love to play outside in the garden.
But this class did not. We asked them to take off their socks as they could get a better feel of the grass below them. They were cranky about the mud and their feet getting dirty and the ants, it was quiet shocking to see. It seemed as if they stepped on grass or saw an ant for the first time.
The whole experience was new for them. We asked them first to close their eyes and listen to the various sound in the ambiance. They were so confused about what we were going to do and didn't want to go with the flow. They took a little time to get into the mood. We then asked them to think of the sounds they heard as music and make your body move to this. They were very apprehensive to move at first but eventually with a little help they got the hang of it. But they were so distracted by the things around them the ants, bees etc. We then asked them to feel they earth visualize what would happen if we go under the earth into another world. We asked them to sit down and feel the earth and grass, Is it wet? Is it dry? Soft? Rough? and then there was a waterfall there. We made them stand in front of the water and asked them to mimic the flow. That they quiet enjoyed.
In the end we had a little discussion on how each one felt. "We got confused because there were too many sounds." "We didn't know which sound you wanted us to pick." "People were watching us so I felt shy." We realised that they just did not or couldn't break out of the structure mode. I put them into an unfamiliar surrounding and they were overwhelmed by the place. Some were feeling uncomfortable as they tried to anticipate what I expected of them. But it was a start and maybe next time they will be a little better.

6 Chracters in search of an Author

Mr Oxyegen, Mr Splash, Mrs Land, Ms Wind, Mr Wave, Mrs Rosy

:)

Introducing the next three characters



Ms Air, Mr Wave and Mrs Rosy

Session 9 class ||| C

I repeated the same thing with class three so none of the kids feel that they haven't contributed.
In total we have 6 characters, 3from class 4 and 3 from class 3 :)

:)

Introducing our First Three Characters :

Mr. Oxygen , Mr. Splash , Mrs. Land

Session 8 class |V D

INTRODUCING THE GROUPS:

GROUP 1: AIR

GROUP 2: WATER


GROUP 3: EARTH

CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT ( PERSONIFICATION OF THE ELEMENTS)
Instruction card:
- Divide yourself into 3 teams, air, water and earth. (This is the first exercise we were going to do in teams.)
- Trace out any one persons body.- Give this person a name and a personality keeping your groups element in mind.( Group Air called him Mr Oxygen, Group Water called him Mr Splash, Group Earth called her Mrs Land.)- You are not allowed to write any words everything you feel and think off had to be depicted through your drawings.

- Draw out MR X's features and think of what kind of clothes he or she would wear. ( They started drawing pants and shirts, but then we made them think hes MR LAND what kind of clothes would Mr Land wear keeping in mind your elements. That's the time they started thinking. The previous exercises of drawing large and visualisations of the elements helped a lot.)
- Think of what kind of person Mr X is and express it in your drawing. ( so, they started discussing among themselves and Mrs land was calm and angry, Mr splash as playful and sometimes little sad, Mr Oxygen was clam and helpful.)
- Draw minimum 3 good and 3 bad qualities of this person. ( For the bad qualities they started to draw the problems that each element was facing.)
- Draw the surrounding this person is in.

‘..education should help one make sense of the world. At the same time, it should help students make sense of themselves as 'players' in the world.’
(Kincheloe and Steinberg 1998)

Visualisations

These Visualizations were from the initial days. I realised that first of all they were not drawing what they saw but what they thought was right and were anticipating what I want. I also realised that they were not free in their drawings so I introduced the scribbling on large paper exercises.

Session 7 Class ||| C

After speaking with Dharma last weekend I realized how important it is for the children first to scribble and use the paper for catharsis. To just let go and go wild without any structure or any fear of being graded and doing what's right to fulfill others expectations. This experience was very new to them. One of them came up to me and said " Its like feeling like a child again" :)
While I was loitering around the corridors of the school I came across the class 3 art period. I was extremely curious to know what they do in this class. I was very upset to see how this class was conducted. The teacher had drawn on the board and the children had to copy it. They were not allowed to do what they wanted to do or interpret things the way they wanted to. So I decided that in my class they can "go wild". I made them stand and draw, sit and draw, lie down and draw. At first they were very very apprehensive to do that. They didn't want to scibble. I had to play a game of "Simon says" to actually get them into the momentum and once they were free there was no looking back. Some were lying down and drawing, others were jumping with excitement. It was really refreshing to see that smile on the children's faces. Iam later going to turn their drawings into sets for our performance. Can't Wait!

Session 6 Class |V D

The session with class 4 was not something different. I repeated all the newspaper exercise with class. I also wanted to do a comparison between class 3 and class 4. Even though they are one year apart there is a vast difference in the results and the intelligence levels. I feel the class 4 kids are more serious and the responses are mature.
We started the session by first teaching how to breathe in the correct way and feeling absolutely blank and relaxed with shavaasan.
Then we started with the body - with feeling light like a bubble and your body moving with this lightness. After this I introduced the newspaper and all the creative things started pouring out.