What we did: We were already reading lots of Aesop's fables, plus the previous cohort's "core value fables". This, through discussion, established that most fables have animal characters and end with a moral. The students already knew the school's motto, "Forward with Pride", as it is discussed here all the time. The students brainstormed possible characters and ideas in both Circle Time and drama (eg. Hot Seat interview) activities. Then we matched each animal (or group of animals) with four potential storylines, which would end in the school motto as the fable's moral.
I challenged the students to draw some of the characters - the top illustration in each fable are the ones selected. These illustrations also inspired aspects of the unfolding narratives. We jointly-constructed fables underneath each picture, over several weeks, and edited onscreen as we went, rereading often. Then, after three of the four fables were finished, the students drew favourite scenes and characters again, some in fine-point black felt pens (ie. with no pencil lines at all). One fable was going nowhere, but provided inspiration and several characters for resolving two of the other fables, so we abandoned that first one.
I selected the most successful pictures. Some I photocopied and let the artist colour in the photocopy. I scanned them all for the four finished wiki pages. One illustration was enhanced with extra colour in Photoshop, and a few had extraneous lines removed digitally.
So the Aesop fables, and knowledge of our school motto's meaning, inspired the discussions, which inspired the first drawings, which inspired the three completed fables, which inspired the new drawings.
- Exhibitions, displays of products plus student self assessments of learning
- Put up “the story” of learning, as well as the products of new learning
- Let the “voices” of students tell the story.
("Knowing and showing how school library programs help students learn", 2004)
So here goes:
Here's what Kindergarten (Early Stage 1, 2008) said about starting our Fables project:
Do you have the Internet at home?
Answer
|
Tally
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Additional comments (scribed from oral).
|
Yes
|
| | | | |
| | |
|
4 x “You can use Internet to go on games/[name of game].”
1 x “I look at Lego 'Star Wars' figures.”
1 x “You can use the Internet to do amazing stuff.”
1 x “You can use Internet to see scary things.”
1 x “You can use the Internet to print things out.”
|
No
|
| | | |
|
3 x “You can use Internet to go on games.”
1 x “When I was five, Mum said 'Wait till you're six' to use the Internet. Now I'm six, she says 'Wait till you're seven'.”
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Don’t know
|
0
|
|
(This year, no demonstration of how a wiki page works was required to illicite responses:)
Why are we using a wiki to write and publish our school fables?
* “You can use a wiki to write books.” (x 2)
* “You can share it with everyone/people.” (x 2)
* “Because we want to.”
* “It's good."
* “With the Internet you can talk to people in Scotland about soccer without a telephone.”
* “You can use a wiki to make stories.”
* “You can use a wiki to tell them your stories.”
* “You can use a wiki to print out easily.”
What will we have learned when we have finished?
* “We will learn the first thing you said - but I forgot.”
* “How to play games.”
* “We will know about the Internet.” (x 2)
* “We will have done ten/twelve stories on the Internet.” (x 2)
* “Know about games.”
* “Learn how to drive a car [ie. driving program].”
* “I don’t know.” (x 2)
* “Sharing stories and how to write.”
* “Circle time.”
* “How to type in stories what we wrote.”
What Kindergarten (Early Stage 1, 2008) said about completing our Fables project.
Do you have the Internet at home?
Answer
|
Tally
|
Additional comments (scribed from oral).
|
Yes
|
| | | | |
| | | | |
|
“We have got the Internet! It's in the office! But I don't go in there."
“And a printer!"
|
No
|
| |
|
“Not yet!"
|
Don't know
|
0
|
|
Why did we use a wiki to write and publish our school fables?
* “So we can show everyone else.”
* “We can show all people in the world and they'll know how clever Penrith kids are.”
* “To tell children something, not just use books.”
* “Our families can look for the wiki on the Internet.”
* “We can be famous.”
* “We can be famous. And then more famous than Aesop."
* “You can type quicker on a computer, and send it further, like even to another country or out into space.”
* “People we don't know can see our work.”
* “Children can get smart.”
* “So we can read the fables on the computer, even if we had no money to buy a book.”
* “You could use a wiki to keep a diary and write in it every day, and everyone could read it.”
* “We can write our fables using the computer and the Internet.”
What had we learned when we were finished?
* “Wikis are good for writing stories.” (x 2)
* “The Internet has games to play.” (x 2)
* “With Google Images we can find lots of exciting pictures of animals.”
* “We learned about lots of animals.” (x 3)
* “The Internet has games and children can play them as a reward.”
* “If something happens in the world, like an earthquake, we can warn people by the Internet to get into a safety zone.”
* “Sometimes people go to different countries and they can use the Internet to stay in touch.”
* “On the Internet we can learn about other countries, which have different people.”
What will we do next?
* “We should do more hot seat [drama activities].”
* “We could read more Aesop's fables in books.”
* “Draw more pictures for the fables we've done.”
* “Show our [class] teachers and the whole class.”
* “Learn about more fables."
* “Make books out of fables.”
* “Learn about other things to put on the wiki.”
* “Do more work with the Internet.”
* “Do more pictures to put on the wiki.”
* “Learn more about animals on the Internet [with Google Images], like when we found the pictures of peacocks and an emu and a rhino - and some pictures were of the rhinoceros beetle and the rhinoceros snake!”
* “Do smart things on the wiki so we can get smarter.”
* “Do it again, but this time with dinosaurs!”
Visit our new Edublogs site.
Penrith Public School Library Wiki © 2007 Penrith Public School, High Street, Penrith 2750, New South Wales, Australia. Telephone 02 4721 2158. Fax 02 4721 3466. No text or graphics may be reproduced without permission. All text and graphics © the original authors/artists of Penrith Public School. HTML by Ian McLean.
This page uploaded Term 4, 2008; last revised 2019.
Wiki URL: http://penrithpslibrary.pbworks.com/
Email the Web Composer at: lindsay96@ozemail.com.au
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