Hide and Seek

I think it is so interesting what people keep hidden about themselves and what you can find if you get to know someone.

This learning journal partner study helped me find out more about Emily, as well as a little bit more about myself.  

For every page that Emily did (unless we were together), I did one of my own.

I chose to do verbal instructions, written instructions, and sometimes even a combination of both.

In the beginning of the journal, the entries were a bit more personal such as:

What are some of your favorite things?

 

What does family mean to you? (note that the word family makes an acrostic)

If you are granted three wishes what would they be?

Through these entries I was able to see:

-what she likes

-what she doesn't

-things that are important to her

-that her spelling isn't necessarily at a level where she should be

These entries showed me Emily's interests right away and gave me a few ideas on what to work on with her for the next session.

From this point I was able to use what I have discovered in order to prepare topics and prompts that would best suit the needs of this particular child.  

By talking with her mother and with Emily I found that she doesn't like school.

I wanted to know why.

We had a session where we went into the content based entries:

We started with Language Arts (her least favorite subject) and I asked her to write to me and tell me why she doesn't like school.

[Standards: 3rd grade. Writing 1.0-1.2]

I asked her verbally to explain what she wrote:

-she gets bored sitting there all day

-she feels like she already knows the material

-"we always had to write up until recess---and there are three recesses." 

-"I think I would like writing more if I got to write like how I did my poem."

From here we talked about the other parts of Language Arts such as reading and spelling:

-She doesn't like spelling; it's difficult for her.

"When I write the words jumble, like sometimes I get my "b"s and "d"s mixed up."

-Sometimes, like in spelling, the words get jumbled in her head when she's reading.

-Reading she likes depending on the book.

"I don't like it when the book is hard or boring; I like it when I understand it or like feel the same--like in Diary of a Wimpy Kid--they have an older brother who tries to act cool too."

Next we tried Math (her next least favorite subject).

I asked her why she didn't like math:

"Because I don't understand it.  There's a lot of stuff to know and it is all really confusing."

I also asked her if her numbers get mixed up like some of her letters do.

She nodded.

For the Math portion we talked about shapes, drawing them, and labeling them.

[Standards: 3rd grade.  Measurement and Geometry 2.0-2.6]

She understood the idea and recognition behind shapes, and just had a little bit of difficulty labeling them.  I quickly realized that Emily strongly dislikes division. This is what happened when I asked what kind of math she remembers from school:

"I remember doing it, but I don't get it.  The numbers never match up and they never work right."

Then we moved to Social Studies.  We talked about geography and geographical features that we live next to (ocean, mountains, desert, etc.). 

 I had her draw a map of our street:

[Standards: 3rd grade. Social Studies 3.1, 1-2]

She drew our cul-de-sac and labeled the places that were important to her (her house, my house, and her friends' houses).  I also asked her to draw which geographical feature she can see from her window and which geographical feature she would like to see from her window:

(Saddleback Mountain)

(The Beach)

For our last content based entry, we worked on Science.  This subject is Emily's absolute favorite.

She told me all about how she likes to do experiments and about a time when her brother and his friends froze a junebug.  She was extremely enthusiastic about this particular topic.  We used our drawings from last time (Social Studies entry) and I challenged her to draw an animal from that type of place and what they need to survive:

[Standards: 3rd grade. Science: Life Sciences 3a,c]

(place: mountains, animal: reindeer, needs: cave for shelter, berries for food, water to drink, fuzz to stay warm.)

(place: beach, animal: fish, needs: reef for shelter, air to survive, small fish for food.)

Once we had finished the content based entries (incorporating the arts), we moved back into personal entries.

We started off with word recognition/color assignment.

From this we can see that:

-she loves her family

-struggles with her brother

-is scared to go into Fourth grade

-is a tomboy

-and finds herself weird

(a "good" weird---I asked).

Then the journal was able to be taken in a separate direction; Emily asked me if we could replicate a page out of my learning journal.  The page Emily wanted to copy, was the one that had given me the most trouble to do--my break the margins page.  I decided to go with it:

She cut, colored, created, and named her artwork.

The Swagger Jagger Express.

This partner journal has showed me so much about myself and how others learn.  I could have only done research on using the arts in content areas, but actually doing it creates a memorable and meaningful experience.

"The roots of education are bitter, but the fruit is sweet."

-Aristotle