Spinning my wheels...

I have a million ideas and not nearly enough focus in any one direction. While I am trying to find ways to wrap up our current inquiry unit, my mind is already leaping forward to the next unit.

My students have been actively gathering information on child labour, child soldiers, women's rights activists, sweat shops and their products, and fair trade. When we took an afternoon break to watch a video on the life of Terry Fox, the students were upset that the time had to come from their inquiry class. They were happy to watch the video, just not so willing to give up their inquiry time. This made my heart happy. The students' enthusiasm and effort is amazing and exciting.

A snag that I have run into is that some of my EAL (English as and Additional Language) students have struggled with the content and expectations of this inquiry. The modifications and supports that I put in place for them have done very little in the way of supporting them towards independent work. I thought that the handout I made them had simple language, but it was still too challenging.

Representing their learning has been my latest focus. I have spent literally hours imagining what our display will look like, and the information that it will need to convey. I have thought about what the expectations for their representations need to be and how to evaluate them. The possibilities seem endless. I've also struggled with knowing how much direction I can give this. Can I decide on what the bulletin board will look like, or do I provide the "canvas" and let the students design the message?

So far I've come up with this: We'll do a wall display on the light colored wall. We'll have one large silhouette of a child soldier, and two smaller (life sized) silhouettes of two children carrying bricks on their heads. The caption overhead will be: Human Right Violations. We will then have three sub-headings or areas to give information. The first section will be informing others, the second section will be personal reactions and advocacy. The last section will display our plan to make change.

I have also come up with a plan to make change: An art auction to raise money for an organization that helps build schools for children.... or something along that line. The children will use old wax crayons to make art that we will auction off. Here again, is my dilemma: can I decide this, or do the children need to direct this themselves?

And so it would seem that my mind is spinning just thinking about the wrap up for this unit. I've mentally got lists running in my head for all of the different things I will need to acquire to pull this off. I'm going to have to keep a list of lists to keep all of it straight.

The next unit will be energy. The grade six students will focus on electricity and the grade sevens will focus on alternative sources of energy. I need toasters, tools, wire, sponsorship, an expert, and the list goes on. My ideas are grandiose and need reining in. I've actually wondered if we can get an exercise bike hooked up to stuff that the students can power by pedaling. The hoarder in me thinks we need to go garage sale-ing. The neat freak in me is baring the doors.