tinker with text
Literacy-Based Maker Education
I’ll be honest - the first time I heard the term “loose parts,” I thought, “What the …?” It’s not the kind of thing you like to think or talk about as a middle-aged woman, especially not in mixed company. It brings to mind all the jiggly bits that we struggle to get rid of, even though it’s just a war against time and gravity. Even now, I still chuckle inwardly or cringe just a little when someone mentions it. What are loose parts? However, in the field of education, it means something quite wonderful. As explained in this article, loose parts are “open-ended materials that can be combined, transported, and transformed.” They can be re-purposed, found or acquired objects. These objects can be used as a springboard for inquiry or makerspace and are a staple in Reggio or Montessori classrooms. Although loose parts have typically been incorporated with Early Childhood Education, literacy lessons, or outdoor education, there’s really no reason not to use them across the curriculum and across the grades. Connecting to the core competencies At the beginning of this term, I delved into Laura Fleming’s latest book, The Kickstart Guide to Making Great Makerspaces. The book includes a planning map. At first, I was going to use it as a poster in my classroom but then I thought, “No, use it.” So I set to work and added sticky notes with notes that were relevant to my practice, place, and students. All good design begins with empathy. The first section I tackled was called, “Understand your learners.” I’m a reading intervention teacher based in an elementary school. Almost all of my students have a learning disability (LD) in reading and/or writing or have an LD profile. Some also deal with anxiety, ADD, lack of self-confidence, or speech/ hearing/ behaviour/ social issues. So I took a look at the BC Core Competencies and decided that I really wanted/ needed to dig deep into these competencies with my students:
Next steps The next steps are what I’ve used as my framework throughout this inquiry process and what I’ve explained since the inception of this blog.
We devoured these books through read-alouds, read-to-self, shared reading, and book talks. We examined these books as mentor texts and used favorite or repeating lines to help us shape our own writing. We wrote journal entries and “I statements.” We drew, we read some more, we wrote some more, we talked lots. And in the midst of all of this, we used loose parts to explore what we thought, felt, heard, learned, understood, and questioned. Captions:
Loose parts allow students to “mess about,” set the imagination free, and create visual representations of their learning. Tinkering with text allows children to grow as readers, writers, and compassionate learners who believe that love and kindness is all around them.
4 Comments
1/31/2018 06:01:16 am
Nice post Vicki! Love your work. I would encourage ts of older students to apply "loose parts" thinking to their teaching too. A generative metaphor!
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Vicki Den Ouden
2/1/2018 02:42:47 pm
Thanks, Gillian! I've seen posts on Twitter from MS and HS teachers who have used loose parts in classes like geography or math. But you're right, there's not too many who do. I'll try to link some of their work in future posts.
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2/6/2018 09:17:09 am
I am so excited to get a copy of your book! I love the idea of starting with empathy. I have been working on a process I call "Read, Play, Talk, Write" that teacher's use to combine literacy and play. (Check it out at foxyandfriendsbooks.ca , I would love your feedback!!) I really like your thinking that this is not a linear process, so true!
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Vicki Den Ouden
2/14/2018 04:05:27 pm
Thanks, Lynda! Glad you enjoyed reading this. I don't have a book though (yet!). :)
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Vicki Den Ouden is an Elementary Reading Intervention Teacher from BC, Canada. She loves to dream, learn, teach, and create. Archives
March 2019
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