Becoming Miss H.: Storybooks & Display Boards

Week One of my PGCE year was tricky to say the least. I found myself struggling with long days and early mornings for the first time in years, and am still trying to come to terms with the high workload. But I'm confident that it'll be completely worth it in the end,

This week was focused on storytelling, and how we can use stories as a hook to engage children in a range of cross-curricular activities. We were introduced to our first 3 "Big Ideas":

1. Stories are universal; they resonate with human motivations and convey complex meanings.

2. Stories provide a stimulating, engaging and motivating context for learning.

3. You can't just read a story; creativity comes from how teachers mediate the story for children.

The third point particularly stuck in my mind; how can we as teachers design a lesson around a story that will engage the child in the story and their learning?

In our workshop, we focused on The Snail and the Whale by Julia Donaldson, and explored how the story could be used through different subjects.

We focused on certain sentences of the book to set the task.

"Fiery Mountains and Golden Sands"

Our first task was a fizz experiment, which could be used as a Science lesson. Using 6 test tubes, bicarbonate of soda, baking powder, digestive salts, cola, lemon juice, vinegar, water and a ruler, we worked in groups to experiment which combination would create the biggest fizz in the tube. This would expand on previous knowledge of acids and reactions, and would give the children freedom to decide for themselves which would have the greatest reaction.

"I can't move on land! I'm too big!"

Using Science again, we had to use Newton metres to find the minimum force that a 2kg weight would move against sandpaper. Other materials were provided, such as Vaseline, pencils etc. This would build on the childrens' previous knowledge of friction and force.

"With zig zag of lightning, flashing and frightening"

We used wax crayons and paint to create our own wax paintings of the Snail and the Whale. This would be a good Art lesson to build on the knowledge of mixing colours, and could also use imagination to draw what they think the characters could have seen on their travels.

"Towering icebergs and far off lands"

For this Science activity, we were given 4 beakers, and a range of materials such as newspaper, bubblewrap, tin foil and fabric. We wrapped each beaker in a different material, and filled them with boiling water, placing a thermometer in each and recording which material would keep the snail the warmest. This would build on previous knowledge of insulation.

"I feel so small"

For a Maths lesson, we were given a model of a snail, paint, and some information; a whale is 8 times the length of the average PGCE student. How many snails would fit the length of the whale?

First, we had to work out the average height of a PGCE student. We measured each person in our group, and averaged it out. We then multiplied this by 8 to find the length of the whale. We marked this on the paper on the floor, and printed each snail with paint and counted how many fit the total length.

Stories were also used for a PE lesson, using Funny Bones by Janet and Allan Ahlberg.

We explored how a simple book like this could be used in physical activity, linking to Science in the process. By doing activities such as running, dribbling a ball etc., we can provide children with the knowledge of what different bones do in our bodies in a fun and engaging way, rather than by pointing out bones on an image of a skeleton.

For an Art lesson, we looked at Not a Box by Antoinette Portis.

We created our own Not-a-Box's, allowing our imaginations to flow completely. Our class had some amazing boxes, ranging from a superhero costume, to a castle, to a wardrobe with a working clothes rail (we really do have some talented people in this class!).

We also looked at poetry, using The Princess' Blankets by Carol Ann Duffy to inspire our own poems about the blankets.

This led on to the opportunity to create our own blankets through the art of weaving. This tested my textile ability, which I found to be quite poor, but we created some fantastic blankets as a result!

Our main task for the week was to create a display board as one big group, showing how stories impact childrens' learning. It was great to have so many different ideas, and to use everyone's own experiences to draw out a plan for the final board.

Our main idea for the board was "Our Garden of Learning", stemming from the idea that as we learn, our knowledge grows, as a plant in a garden would.

We made a tree in the middle, with a child poking his head out, personifying curiosity. Each leaf had a statement on it, defining what stories mean to us.

We wrote on flowers and garden creatures to keep with the theme, and wrote from both the child's and teacher's point of view.

We created a spider at the bottom of the board, with each leg representing a different subject. For each subject, we wrote how we would use stories for each of these lessons, and what questions we would ask related to that subject.