May Challenge

I'm not a huge sketch person, but am going to take up the "Sketch a Day in May" challenge from Steve Mouldey.  If I'm honest, it won't be every day (I'm already a day late) and it will be a mix of what I own sketches and the sort of sketching is happening in my classroom.

I am lucky that I have a couple of whiteboard tables in my room.  These arrived in week 4 Term One, and it took about six weeks before the novelty for some of drawing crazy body parts the minute they had a pen to wear off.  It has been great to see that some students will now grab a whiteboard pen if they are sitting there and want to  brainstorm.

The sketch on the left was from a student who had read through an article and did this as her interpretation of the instructions I had given (skim/scan/notes)  I was so excited!  It was amazing to see that she was putting down the ideas in a way that  best suited her and seeing where they led.  The image on the right was from a whole class activity where they had written down their own ideas,  ideas from the article and some facts/opinions they knew that related to our topic.  We then the ideas down around our discussion topic and each student explained their hexagon(s) to the class.  

I am loving using the hexagon template.  This is based on Pam Hook's SOLO work and I am currently using it for note taking and idea gathering.  While I might not use it perfectly or in the way intended perfectly yet, it is proving a great thing to have.  For my slower and more kinaesthetic learners, it is something they can cut out and is proving to keep them focused for that bit longer.  I look forward to using this more in this research/report unit.