A person’s a person, no matter how small!
March 27, 2008
What a wonderful message for our students. I have just returned from seeing Horton Hears a Who with a colleague. Now you may wonder why I went to a children’s movie with another adult??
I have to say I am a lover of great books for kids and that is where Horton comes in. Over the last few years of teaching I have discovered the power of Dr Seuss books and have used them extensively in my planning for learning. A few years ago I
planned a whole integrated unit around values and personal learning, which I based on Dr Seuss books and his messages of friendship, tolerance, negotiation and persistence, as well as other values. We even discussed the dispositions of characters such as Horton according to Art Costa’s Habits of Mind.
I think there are many options to develop some real thinking around Horton Hears A Who. These are some possibilities for developing good reflections of the messages of the story with the use of purposeful new technologies –
Create a Voice Thread with each student sharing -
• a quality of Horton that makes him a special friend
• their favourite moment
• a way that they are like a character from the story
Create a wiki for students to create a class reflection using
• Plus Minus Ideas
• deBono’s 6 Thinking Hats
Create a short claymation/animation based on the qualities of Horton and post to Teacher Tube.
Any other suggestions?
Entry Filed under: Web2.0, literacy. Tags: , Dr Suess, media.
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1.
jdblack64 | April 6th, 2008 at 3:58 am
Helen -
Enjoyed how you framed your analysis of this movie according to Costa’s Habits of Mind. A wonderful idea as are your web 2.0 ideas about exploring this theme more. You know, I’d never heard of Habits of Mind until a few years ago (I’ve been an educator for many years), when my son’s elementary teacher in third grade introduced Habits of Mind via some paperwork sent home. What incredible material to share with students — of any age! I’m a high school teacher and have since then started looking at how I can weave Costa’s ideas into my classroom with teenagers.
A nice post.
By the way, love your blog layout — very clean and easy to read!
2.
tracy | April 8th, 2008 at 4:14 am
Thanks for your comment on classroom 20…you can probably help me ALOT as I explore teaching with technology and collaboratively through technology. My district is a bit behind on all of this!