Challenge Completed! What’s Next?

#sol19- November 5, 2019

Last Friday was the first day of November and consequently the completion of another 3EV challenge. I had heard about Inktober  in the past and talked about trying it out way back in August when the school year just began. As I got to know my class I knew it was a challenge many of them would like and so September 30 I finally got around to talking about it with the class- no surprise many were interested. We have 10-15 minutes of Quiet Time each day just after lunch, so I proposed that time as a time people could work on the prompt of the day if they wanted. That night I hurried off to a stationery store to buy a bunch of pens (and later in the month I bought a few more widths). I made plans with the art teacher to have a book binding celebration when the month ended.

It turns out that every student tried it at least a few times so once we walked across the hall to the art room last Friday we spread all the papers on the floor and the kids gradually collected and ordered their pages. Dana taught them five different ways to bind their books and invited them to use their own way if they were so inclined. We spent a glorious 40 minutes putting together our own books with time spent admiring each other’s work and interpretations of each word. The words themselves had been fun vocabulary builders and really allowed the kids to try out new ideas. Our EAL teacher was amazed when a group working on long vowel sounds offered “frail” as an example- they really remembered the words they had illustrated.

It was heartwarming to watch them tuck their books inside their backpacks with pride.  As for me, it was a challenge indeed for me-art does NOT come easily to me, yet I stuck with it and every single day in October I gave myself permission to try something new (and hard) for a few minutes. My book is now at home on my bookshelves- my first ever Inktober souvenir. I feel like the Inktober experience might make more of the kids willing to try out the SOL Challenge this year- we shall see!