Last year I was attempting Mantle of the Expert with 20 Year 1 children. This year I have 33 Year 1 and 2 children. During my first attempt this week (more below) I looked at the class at work/wandering aimlessly around and thought.... we have a long way to go. However, I have some pros of such a big group of small children:
- The Year 2 children (see previous blog posts) can help to bring the Year 1 along on the journey
- There will be a good buzz in the classroom
- The more children doing MoE, the better
My new Mantle borrows ideas from Tim Taylor and Jenny Lewis' Oak Tree Context.This week I've done two sessions laying the foundations for our first team and client. First, I shared the story of Scaredy Squirrel with the children.* If you've never seen this book, you should do so and soon. The children loved the story almost as much as I do.
Following this we co-created a tree. I started with a large piece of paper and began drawing concentric circles to represent the tree. We discussed the age of the tree and how we could turn this piece of paper into a tree. The children got to work; before the session I really had little idea how we would make the tree, but it worked (see photo).**
The following session we talked about squirrels and made some squirrels for the tree (see creature-like images attached to tree).
Finally, we added the leaves (curriculum link alert - we talked about what oak trees are, what the leaves look like and what grows on them (acorns - not pine cones as a couple of children suggested)).
Then I gathered the children together to talk about what our tree had that made it a tree; leaves, bark, trunk, acorns, branches. Then I said; 'so it's tree on the outside, but not yet on the inside. It's a tree without a story.' There were a few confused looks, but they were all interested. I passed around photographs of ancient oak trees and their stories (side note: I love trees) and the children enjoyed reading about the Bowthorpe Oak, the Big Belly Oak, the Milking Oak and others.
Following this, I asked the children to imagine what could have happened under our oak tree many years ago (along the way we decided it was around 500 years old - somewhere between the '26' and '20,000' suggested). They role played their ideas and we photographed some freeze frames. Ideas ranged from dancing around it for good luck, to soldiers feeding their horses under it, to digging for treasure that was beneath it. In between these good ideas were a a lot of 'we're having a fight!' which I approached by asking, 'why?' and not accepting 'because we're ninjas'.
Anyway, by the time we had written our tree's story and given it a name (King of the Oaks), I felt that most of the 33 children were beginning to be invested in the tree and were ready for the next step. Amongst the challenges that a new academic year brings, our two MoE sessions made me happy.
Notes:
* In Tim Taylor's book he lists 7 strategies for dramatic inquiry. This is number 1: sharing a complete story
** Another strategy - this time number 5: creating an image or other resource with the student.
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