It was a pleasant day with the sun peeking through, yet it stayed cool.
“Ochieda Star”, which we introduced the other day, is when you make stars with fallen sticks, which was made by our 3rd grade students. Today, they created an explanation video of how to make them with their own abilities. Please see the below video (From 00:16, the video was made by the children themselves):
Mrs. H, a fellow student, also participated as a cinematographer, and it was a joint creation by all three of them.
The teaching material is currently only in Japanese, but we thought about the structure of the explanation. In order to make it easier to understand, and we included photos of the process. We arranged the necessary materials to match the text, and took photos while thinking about which order they should be in, to make it easier for the listener to understand.
By starting with the question “Have you ever made anything with fallen sticks or branches?”. We decided to show the order of how to make it with “first” and “next”, and made it easier to hear by speaking loudly and clearly. We think it was very easy to understand.
We were overwhelmed by the power the children have, by combining the photos and videos into a single movie using iMovie, not to mention the high level of explanation.
What kind of lessons can designers (teachers) do to bring out this kind of power in children? Currently, all of our teachers are in the process of doing their homework on what constitutes a good lesson, and every day we feel very happy that there are teachers in the same school who have accomplished other practices that should be emulated.
The 5th grade Science class is also doing an interesting experiment. In order to consider the enviroment necessary to grow seeds, we place seeds in various enviroments, and record the findings. We were very surprised when we found an experiment cup in the fridge drawer. At the same time, we have been finding them in various places around the school!
