small voices kathy dawson shields

This video is somewhat delayed. Last summer I participated in a hands on science workshop at Oxford at Emory University in Oxford, GA. It was an amazing two weeks of technology free exploration. We spend some time in a small A-Frame lab-house at the edge of a small lake and collected water specimens, looked under rocks and under leaves on trees to discover the range critters residing in the area and to determine the health of the environment based on the wildlife present. It's the kind of learning I did as a kid in the creeks nearby my home. I recall tricking the newcomers into sniffing freshly picked skunk cabbage and amazing friends with captures of mud puppies and salamanders. We examined our finds under microscopes, made charts and graphs and predicted outcomes. We walked the walk of a child investigator in the hopes of providing such an experience to our our students. OIEE as they are called specialize in backyard investigations. They absolutely insist that student devise their own hypothesis and then develop a method to test them and to collect data. As an aside, Oxford University is a two year college leading to a 3rd and 4th year at the prestigious Emory University in Georgia. Little Oxford exists in a bucolic setting amidst farms and small town neighborhoods. A very infamous event took place the Spring before our summer course. It involved a live zebra. It will forever be remembered as one of the most infamous college pranks in history. Just google it to learn more!

3-third grade boys research and create sports talk show to tell about their favorite players. Students wrote the script individually and collaborated on setting up the show.

Each year I enjoy giving my students the challenge of turning a story into a play. In 3rd grade this was even more of a challenge for me in a number of ways. To begin with, we have more content to cover and lots of time spent preparing for standardized testing in April which makes it difficult to eek out time to plan and practice let a alone perform. Additionally, the process of choosing parts, developing lines and creating dialog, sequencing and blocking the production must happen over an extended period of time and students get anxious about when it will finally be ready.

I read the story, My Father's Dragon aloud to the class in December and used it to discuss the different fiction genres including folktales, fairy tales and fantasy. This story is fantasy. Next I had the students storyboard their favorite scene in the book using a graphic organizer for comic strips. This helped them identify with the characters. We talked about how character traits are identified in speech. How somebody says something tells a lot about their personality. It is their own particular "voice". Next I made a long list of characters and asked them to give me their top three choices. Except for three parts, everyone got their first choice.

The girls involved in the dispute over parts had a plan, could we modify the story somewhat to make one part stronger and in effect make two leads? We managed to reach consensus and our parts were established. All that happened in January. I wasn't until March that we had an opportunity to continue our work.

In March I asked the students to gather on the carpet and we walked through the parts. We established positions and entrances. I took pictures along the way. Later I printed the images with scene captions and asked the students to write the lines they thought they should say in their various scenes. Some of them knew exactly what to say, others needed help. Some wanted to say very little and that was OK.

They worked in small groups with their scene partners to develop the dialog further. In the end, a student typed up the dialog on each picture slide in a power point and then I printed the copy as handouts. We spend time practicing in a circle the timing of the lines and just talking through the entrances and so on.

The 2nd to last week of school we were running out of time. The students wanted to make their own costumes. I suggested keeping it simple and sticking to a hat-mask so we could see and hear them clearly. We rehearsed on a Wednesday and it was a disaster! I wondered how we could pull it off. 3rd graders like to discuss everything and we had more talk than action.

One wise friend, Paula Boston, who also enjoys doing plays with her class suggested I set a performance date and time. She said when the kids have the goal of performing for peers, they rise to the occasion. She was right! We had two performances on Thursday and it went splendidly. My soon-to-be-college-daughter Madi filmed, as she was out of school already, and Mrs. Boston's 3rd Grade watched. She had her students make comments about things they liked or questions they had. We had one performance on Friday and scheduled the parent performance for Tuesday the last week of school. After each performance we talked about how we could be improve.

It turned out to be a wonderful experience although a lengthy process. The students will forever remember My Father's Dragon and the very special roles they each played in making it happen.

My Father's Dragon, part 1, Students listen, sequence, select, write and act out a chapter book.

Watch how 40 seconds transformed our class pet, Sparkle into a weightless cloud hopper. I wanted to introduce my students to the green screen concept so I decided to demonstrate it as a magic trick using the rabbit as my focal point. Instead of pulling him out of a hat I placed him in the sky. what you are seeing here is the after effects but what your are hearing are the students voices while simply watching Sparkle explore his small student desk top which was covered in green fabric and sitting up against a green backdrop. When the students saw the finished product the next day, their jaws dropped and they started giggling and asking how I did it. I showed them, a couple at a time at my desk and explained that it was a little like making a collage. I just combined two images.