Lincoln Elementry, Norman OK
Experience The Rabbit Hole, a new immersive museum in Kansas City that celebrates a century of children's literature, and attend a free Ai Technology Conference, to curate and establish a yearlong story walk/art expo for all students in our school.
How can we connect spaces (library, Maker Space and garden) with learning across grade levels/disciplines to optimize learning? In our fast paced world, it is hard to engage students and families in reading/responding to quality literature. The Story Walk is our attempt to build on whole school literacy initiatives while also using child friendly strategies like body movement, artful expressions in the Maker Space, along with collaboration and connection amongst peers/families/staff.
Slowing down in our implementation, which was highly encouraged as we began our circle work, has helped us build synergy to maintain and build upon our original ideas for implementation. I feel like the progression starting with our own experiences in the summer and building up to the sharing session in December really allowed us the time to think through and build upon our original vision for this project. Also, the focus on student voice led us to a more clear plan.
After we realized that we needed to focus less on quantity (number of books collected) and more on quality (how we build on established school wide initiatives and include all voices), we began to enjoy the process so much more. That joy has helped us stay engaged with moving the project along at an organic level with more of a focus on allowing students and families opportunities to access and personalize the Story Walk experience. Acquiring a local partnership will help us sustain the project
AUTONOMY! Our students are excited about our next story walk because they had a part in choosing the book. (We have utilized our school wide assemblies for promotion and engagement with the three book we have used so far. The last book was chosen by students after taking teacher nominations.) Now that they have experienced Maker Space connected to the Story Walk (and with their younger book buddies,) they are submitting their ideas of what they want to make and learn next in the Maker Space.
The invitation to guide their own choices in reading and making has been met with great enthusiasm. I think they have benefitted from seeing that we value their opinions and needs as learners. Teachers are asking about what is coming after the next book and how they can start preparing to make intentional learning connections in the Maker Space and garden. The families loved being a part of the initial Story Walk at our Fall Reading Night and we see this as a new tradition.
The collaboration came at a great time (with the entrance of new site leadership) and gave us a way to build something new together. The time we had together to experience The Rabbit Hold Immersive in Kansas City and to visit local libraries and have deep discussions about quality literature and ideas for engagement gave us solid footing to work as a team with our librarian and to share that joy school wide.
The messaging in those first meetings around the idea of slowing down and allowing the project to take shape were expansive for me. I often feel like everything is urgent/on fire/needs to be done and checked off and the slow bake that came out of that feels like it has allowed oxygen around this project which will help us sustain our efforts. I think also just seeing and watching others' ideas come to fruition was very gratifying as we shared the struggles and successes along the way.
