I (Joy) borrowed a grade one class for two sessions to try out the lesson ideas we wanted to present here on our blog. Hopefully, my reflections on the experience will support educators trying out these experiences with their own learners. 

Situating the Learning:

Since I was not teaching my own class, and the learners had not worked with any of the water lessons from this blog, it was important to begin by situating the learning. I shared with students that we were going to be doing math- and our teacher would be water, a novel idea for them! I introduced Dr. Jo-ann Archibald’s 4 Rs of Indigenous storywork: reverence, respect, responsibility, and reciprocity, sharing that we would be focusing on the R of respect in our work with water.

As we began, we discussed how showing respect to water begins with making the proper acquaintance. As Dr. Archibald says in her book Indigenous Storywork, “creating the time to listen and having the patience to learn what storytellers are sharing and teaching are fundamental to establishing respectful relationships.”

Here is a brief outline of what we did, followed by my reflection of the experience.

Session 1:

Show video on Understanding Respect.

I also showed a brief clip of Water, Water Everywhere (0:00-1:09)  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rEJ5yuFR3f8

Students were asked to draw an image and/or write about why water is important, a memory of water or something they knew about water. (I gave students a ¼ of a blank sheet of paper.)

Examples of student drawing/writing about water

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

Students came back together and we ignited the sense of hearing by playing sound clips of water – natural and human made, inside and outside. (If time, experience these sounds in real life, inside and outside, rather than playing sound clips.) Students try to guess the sound. Examples of sound clips included: jumping into a pool, underwater sound, pouring water into a glass of ice, running tap, shower, sprinkler, quiet, gentle rain, a rainstorm, a rushing river, a brook, a waterfall etc.

Next, in groups of 3, students worked to create vocalizations. Choosing a water sound from the samples we had heard or other water sounds of their choice, students used their mouths and bodies to recreate the sound.

We came back together as a class and shared our vocalizations. Then we attempted to use letters to write out the sound – for example, a heavy rainstorm – “SSSSHHHHH”, waves crashing – Pssh, Pssh, Pssh.

Session 2:

Session 2 was a few days later so we needed to revisit what we had done in our first session.

I quickly played a few of the sound clips again, to get us thinking about the sounds. Back in groups of 3, students had a bit more time to create vocalizations of a variety of sounds. Each group was given an iPad to voice record the sounds they were making. Sample here

We came back together as a class and shared the vocalizations. We represented some of the sounds on the whiteboard with letters, and created an image associated with the sound.

The groups then chose 3 sounds and created movements to go with each water sound. Once the sounds were connected to a movement, students created patterns with their sounds and movements.

We wrapped up this session with groups sharing their vocalization/movement patterns with the class.

Next Steps:

If I had more time (another session or two), I would dig into the mathematics a bit deeper. We could sort and classify the sounds, and represent the classifications. For example, inside sounds/outside sounds, short sounds/long sounds, quiet sounds/loud sounds etc. We could also explore the patterns deeper and create written representations of our embodied patterns. We could take the patterns we had made, and combine them (perhaps two groups combined together) to create a song, and we could teach each other our songs and perform them for other classes. We could rearrange our original sound patterns to recreate other patterns and explore the differences. We could also create a variety of graphical representations to show classification of the sounds.

Reflection:

I was awed by the amazing thinking and learning that happened for the grade one students during these lessons. Due to time constraints, I squeezed what could have been multiple lessons into two. I would love to have the time with the students to spread the lessons out and go about deeper with them.

The lessons integrated physical activity, phonics and literacy, and mathematics with the potential for science as well. Students were engaged and excited about the learning and fully embraced what we were doing. As a teacher, it was easy to SEE who was understanding the pattern and who was struggling to stick with the pattern.

One of the things I loved about these lessons was the negotiations (in groups and as a class) over how to vocalize and add movements to the sounds… How do we differentiate between a waterfall “SSSSSSHHHHHH”… and quiet steady rain “sssssshhhhhh” or is it “sssssssssss”? How to write out the sound when the water hits ice as it is being poured into a glass… is it clink, clink, clink or cling, cling, cling? A great phonics activity! Do we need two mouths to make the sound or can we recreate it with one?

Not only were we developing math skills (specifically developing conceptual understanding of patterns) but learners were also developing communication skills, social skills, creativity, problem-solving, teamwork and connections to our natural world as we elevated the importance value of water in our lives.

Students were developing a conceptual understanding of patterning and at the same time, creating connections to the importance and value of water to our world.

Thirsty and hot

An 11-year-old child

Emerges from her Grandad’s

Chrysler Grand Fury

After hours of winding island highway travel

And bends to take water from

A cold mountain stream

Cups her hands and is amazed to be holding

Something so beautiful

So restless

And the deep drink she takes

Is felt throughout

Her small growing body.

Three decades later

A child no longer

She sits beside a clear mountain stream

Thirsty and hot

Startled to see that beautiful water

As a million billion clear molecules

Hydrogen and oxygen holding formation

Their crystalline structure so liquid perfect

Rolling and tumbling so gently

Over smooth stones

Something deep inside her cells calls out

And she is compelled to hold

That wondrous restless water once again

And drink deeply.

(Written by Jen Whiffin, Summer 2021)

That small poem represents two very profound moments in my life involving water. There were other amazing moments as well: swimming, fishing, washing, and simply looking and appreciating. I have enjoyed so many moments and spent so much money just to be near different types of water: lots of water cascading off a cliff, hot water steaming up from geothermal springs, blue water sitting there looking pretty, frozen water on a mountain. Water is awesome.

As a teacher, I tried to provide students will opportunities to have those profound water experiences, too. I liked to blend science, poetry, and art: deep observation, analogous thinking, and representation. Some of the most amazing poems came out of young students while studying water. Here are two that I found:

Aside from being beautiful, water behaves in intriguing and important ways. Water flows and pulls and pushes and swells and splashes and rises and disappears. It creates and destroys. It is ancient: the same water on Earth now has been here practically from the very beginning (just travelling around in different forms). And–importantly–it is accessible for all kids and teachers in and arounds schools. It is something you can directly engage with through sight, touch, hearing, smell, and taste.

When Joy and I started working together on the Noticing Water project in EDCP 551, we both saw the potential to connect the study of water to mathematics both at the primary and intermediate levels. We were also intrigued by the possibility that the 4 R’s of Indigenous Storywork (reverence, respect, responsibility, and reciprocity) could help guide both students and teachers as they engaged with water as a storyteller. After consulting with Dr. Jo-ann Archibald Q’um Q’um Xiiem and Dr. Cynthia Nicol, we carefully began finding and illuminating the connections. We continued to consult with both Jo-ann and Cynthia throughout this course as well. We did this to ensure that we were honoring and properly representing Jo-ann’s work and ideas. Furthermore, both Jo-ann and Cynthia offered valuable insights and perspectives, which means that many of our little films have had several iterations. Fortunately, the journey has been enjoyable! We still have 2 major themes to go: responsibility and reciprocity. The project is a labour of love that we will continue whether or not we have coursework.

In addition to Indigenous Storywork, Joy and I were inspired by the following pedagogical frameworks and ideas:

• Ecojustice Mathematics (Wolfmeyer, 2017): “Mathematics plays a role in constructing our understanding of our world and we come to perceive it as relational to all living and non-living things
• First People’s Principles of Learning (FNESC, 2014): “Learning supports the well-being of the self, family, community, land, spirits, and ancestors; learning is holistic, reflexive, reflective, experiential, and relational
• Pedagogy of Responsibility (Martusewicz, 2018): love of our place in the form of collective responsibility and meaningful work as an antidote for despair and exhaustion.
• Ecological pedagogy of joy (Latrimouille, 2020): “Yes, it looks bleak. But you are still alive now. You are alive with all the others, in this present moment. And because the truth is speaking in the work, it unlocks the heart. And there’s such a feeling and experience of adventure.”
• Embodied Learning (Macedonia, 2019): “The Cartesian Era is over. Neither Descartes, nor Kant or Fodor were right. Cognition is neither amodal nor symbolic. Empirical evidence shows that in at least two educational domains, i.e., second language and mathematics, embodied strategies lay the base for enhanced understanding and learning.”

My my personal challenge for this project was to create a set of resources that would help scaffold and make accessible embodied, joyful, responsible, and holistic mathematical experiences for teachers and their students with a focus on water in local places. It was (and continues to be!) challenging, but as I said before, it is a labour of love.