Jan.10, 08

Today is my first day of school at Randall after a long winter break. I prepared a Poetry lesson & a Math lesson, and I'm excited about seeing the students~

In the morning, I asked both the Gr.4s & 5s to sit around the carpet to make a circle. I've never tried this before because there's so many of them and so little space. But I took Tribes a few weeks ago, and I found that sitting in a circle is more effective than just having them sit in the centre of the carpet. So I tried, and it works~ Although we're a little bit squishy.

Before I began my Poetry lesson, I introduced the rainstick to them. I used to do clapping to get their attention, but I thought having a new way to do it would spark some interests. I told them that from now on, whenever they see me hold up the rainstick, or whenever they hear the sound of the rainstick, they'd stop talking & stop everything that they're doing, and start snapping their fingers or rubbing their palms together. If they see other people doing it, they'll follow, until the whole class is quiet. I let them practice. I told hem to talk amongst themselves. When I held up the rainstick, a lot of students noticed and started snapping their fingers. I was really impressed! We practiced for a couple of times, and they are really good at it now!

I introduced the lesson by asking them to think of 2 things: 1) Something that they did during the holiday. 2) Begin a sentence with "When I think of poetry, I think of...". We went around the circle, and only a few students passed. I was surprised that some quieter students were willing to participate!

I read them a few poems and discussed about them briefly. Then I asked them, before we write anything, what do we need? Ideas. A poetry journal is a great way to save our ideas! We can record our thoughts & feelings through writing (in any language), pictures, dooodles, anything. I let them know that they'll be having their own poetry journal, but it's their private property, so they can keep it as personal as they want. If they want to share something from their journal, they are welcome to. But if they don't want to, that's OK.

We started our first guided journal writing with a song by Bach. I told them to close their eyes and listen to the song. After 5 minutes, they can use words or pictures to record their feelings, or the images that came up to their mind. To their surprise, I also opened my journal and started writing. I'm going to do exactly what they are told to do, because I want to be a good example for them. After that, we sat in the circle and shared. It's amazing how different students think of different things when listening to the same music!

After that, I asked them to decorate the cover of their journal. Some of them wrote things like "Private Personnel Only", which I think is very cute, and I'm actually glad, because they're showing me that they'll treat the journal as their private space, which makes it very personal, and I believe that they'll use it a lot. Some wrote their names in their own language. A Chinese girl asked if I know how to pronounce her Chinese name, and I do. =)

My host teacher Ms.Lamba saw the difference in my teaching style too, and she asked me what happened. I told her that I took Tribes and I love it. I love the way that I'm implementing it, and I'm just excited to see that the students are so engaged and excited about Poetry now!