Pre-Quarantine: How Kids Play
During Quarantine: Learning How to Teach
Pre-quarantine: What gave you joy as a kid? What gives kids joy in Spanish speaking countries?
During quarantine: What do I want to teach others? What skill sets can I offer others while in quarantine?
Before the quarantine, we began the project by having teens reflect on games they enjoyed as a kid. We had group conversations about what games they played, then wrote down what made those games “games.” Then they chose a Spanish—speaking country, and searched on the internet what children’s games are played there. Through conversations, they identified the ways these games were similar to ones they had played as a child.
Once the lockdown began, students reflected on their own strengths and interests to create how-to videos to teach their particular know-how to someone else.
Words by Lake View High School, Teacher, Melody Foley, and Teaching Artist, Gwyneth Zeleny Anderson.
Students explored the initial inquiry question through group conversation, internet research, and collecting images on a Pinterest account. We also spent a day playing some of our favorite childhood games, and having group conversations about what we enjoyed and didn’t enjoy about them.
Then, using images they found, Gwyneth taught them how to use a lightbox to trace certain parts of a picture, with the aim of turning their drawings into a picture-book to teach children about the games played in Spanish-speaking countries. The quarantine began as they were in the middle of making these drawings.
How to draw a tree:
Step 1: Start on the roots
Step 2: Then we start drawing the trunk of the tree.
Step 3: Shade the trunk in
Step 4: Draw the branches on the tree.
Step 5: Detail the whole tree again
Step 6: With the branches out draw little tips of tiny branches
Step 7: Then lightly shade the branches of the tree from light to dark
Step 8: Make sure there are curves and not just straight lines. Add details.
We Shifted
After quarantine began, we shifted to asking the students what skills they want to teach others, like a YouTube “how to” video. We introduced the idea by sharing a number of different already existing how-to videos, asking them to reflect on what strengths and skills they already possess.
Making Mountains Instructions by a Student
1 Get a square sheet of paper.
2 Fold the top left corner to the center.
3 Fold the top right corner to the center.
4 Fold bottom right corner to the center.
5 Fold bottom left corner to the center.
6 Turn paper over.
7 Repeat steps 2-5. 8 Fold in half .
9 Put fingers in the opening so they look like little mountains.