Growing in 2nd
As an end to this school year, second graders reflected on how they've grown and changed this school year.
We began by talking about the definitions for growth and change. I asked students, "What is change?" and a lot of responses were examples of change like "We change our clothes!" We worked on creating a definition for change which required students to generalize, a skill that is still difficult. We settled on change is when something becomes different. Then, we moved onto growth. This one was a little easier and while many students gave examples of growing, we were able to relate to something a little more concrete like plants and animals. For growth, students said growth is when something becomes bigger.
The next week, second graders used their divergent thinking skills to brainstorm all of the ways that they have grown or changed this school year. Some of the things students said were:
"My feet got bigger."
"I lost my baby teeth."
"I'm more responsible."
"I can tell time."
"I'm a better reader!" *swoon*
The next phase was to categorize their ideas into one of four categories: physically, mentally, emotionally and abilities/skills. After discussing the meaning of each of these words, we started sorting their ideas. This required students to make a lot of considerations and decisions. Students learned about evaluative thinking and how it's not always easy to make decisions. As we made decisions, students recorded their own ideas on a chart.
Students used their chart of ideas to create a beautiful piece of art using crayons and watercolor paints, a technique called watercolor resist. Students drew a picture of something that grows then added their own ideas of how they've grown or changed. Finally, they painted over the crayon with watercolor and created beautiful art to represent their year in second grade!
