Last week was all about abstract art, and this week was all about spider webs! We started the day by creating flow maps showing the sequence of a spider web being spun. Then the students followed that pattern to create a watercolor painting of a spider web by drawing the web design with white crayon and painting over it. The students were awed to learn a few water color painting techniques that helped them get more vibrant colors. 

After recess, we read the book The Girl Who Never Made A Mistake and used it as an opportunity to talk about the strategy of finding humor if a situation is challenging or we make mistakes. This came in handy for the last activity of the day, where students again followed their flow maps to create giant plastic wrap webs inside hula hoops. They worked in teams of three to design a web that could catch plastic dinosaurs that were thrown at it. Before beginning, they also had to make a design plan, a disagreement plan, and a sharing responsibility plan. 

I saw more persistence on this activity than any work we have done this year! Teams did a fantastic job of using their strategies of trial and error, finding humor, observing classmates, and persisting to come up with some awesome solutions and have fun in the process!