Literacy Studio

What is Literacy Studio? Literacy Studio is an approach to developing increasingly sophisticated reading and writing skills and attitudes through the application of the arts, lived experience, and mentor texts. Examining the course of study over the last month in the Opal 4 classroom provides insight into this methodology. Mentor Texts In Literacy Studio, we write under the influence …

Authentic Inquiry and real life challenges

“What kind of blocks does each classroom need?” “What is the space like where they will store their blocks?” “How are the pre-schoolers using the blocks?” These were questions asked by the group of students charged with researching the four Opal classrooms which had asked us to build them hollow blocks.  While the majority of …

The role of questions

Unanswerable questions should be a source of comfort. They ensure that you will always have something to think about! But why do puzzlements provide satisfaction? Because they invite the most precious of human abilities to take wing. I speak of imagination, the neglected stepchild of American education. -Eliot Eisner   My Colorland has trees, birds, …

A Study of Bugs

In second and third grade this year, the “big idea” we are studying is the concept of interdependence. This idea of each living thing having its place in a system that relies on it and that it relies on can be studied through almost anything.  We have begun to study it through the world of insects.  …