The Bee Project: 4th Grade

The Bee Project: 4^th Grade

Post Activity

Lincoln Elementary School, Oak Park, Illinois

March 5^th – June 1^st
Background

School: Lincoln Elementary

Teacher: Victor Baez

Grade: 4^th

No. Students: 24

Main goals

The main goal of this post activity is to get an idea if the students have gained any skills when it comes to working with gesture language. In our post activity, the students will be given a situation that they will have to create non-verbal gestures for communication. In all, the students will need to create gestures for 12 separate occurrences. We will show the students the 12 different occurrences at the outset, which we believe, will predispose them to create 12 separate gestures. We would like to be able to say that students who have experienced the Bee Activity, will have a better chance of seeing the similarities between the situations, and will come up with gestures that generalize well, instead of creating 12 independent gestures.

Groupings

The students will be divided into 6 groups. This will mean approximately 4 students per group. Each small group will be responsible for creating a gesture language to solve the problem that the students are presented with. We will ask each small group to describe their language to our video camera. Later, we will also ask groups to pair up with another group, and they will try demonstrating their language to another group, who will try to decipher their language.

Introduction of the Task

First we will talk briefly about the bee activity.

What did you find difficult/easy with the Bee activity?

What and how did the bees communicate?

In the distant kingdom of Earule, the royal Decibel family governs the land. King and Queen Decibel are renowned throughout the land as kind and merciful rulers. They have a son and daughter who are the Prince and Princess of Earule. There is one strange thing about the Decibel family, they have enormous ears. The families ears stretch from the tops of their heads, down to their knees. Not surprisingly the family has a very, very keen sense of hearing. Their hearing is so sensitive, that normal speaking hurts their ears. They have asked all visitors to the royal castle, to please not speak while inside the castle, but instead to use gestures.

You are members of the new royal cleaning crew. The royal family members often want their rooms cleaned at different times each day. As the new royal cleaning crew, the first thing you will need to do, is to create your own gestures, so that the cleaning crew will be able to let each other know what room to clean, and at what time of day. There are 4 rooms you will be responsible for keeping clean:(the King room, the Queen room, the Princess room, and the Prince room). There are 3 times of day that the royal family can ask to have their rooms cleaned: (Dawn, Noon, and Dusk) Also keep in mind that the royal cleaning crew will be very busy during the day, and it would be a great advantage if the gestures did not involve the use of your hands, (you will probably always be carrying or cleaning something with them…)

(Show the overhead)

Show the students the 4 rooms. Remind the students of the 3 times of day. Ask the students for all of the permutations. List out all permutations in the order that the students suggest them! Remind the students again that the use of their hands in the gestures will be impossible. Things like stomping on the floor will also be discourage because it will frighten the royal Decibel family who will no doubt hear the stomping throughout the castle.

First Small Group Session
^{During the first small group session, the students will divide into 6 small groups of approximately 4 students each. At this time they will be free to develop their gestures for the 12 situations in any way they see fit, provided it follows the constrains of no use of hands, and no stomping. The students will be reminded that they need to keep their language secret, because later they will have to try and guess other groups’ languages.} Language Explanation
^{After the 6 small groups have completed their language, they will be pulled out (one group at a time) to explain/demonstrate their language to our video camera. At this point we will give each student a questionnaire to fill out.} Sample Questionnaire

What was difficult about creating a new gesture language?

What do you think makes your language good, or not good?

Small Group Pairs

At this point, we will ask each group to pair up with another. This will make 3 groups of 2 teams. The teams will then take turns demonstrating their language.

Now it will be your job to try and figure out another groups’ language. Each group needs to pair up with another group. We should now have 3 groups. You will now take turns trying to figure out the other groups language. The group that is doing the guessing can only ask for a room and time of day, the group that is demonstrating can only do the dance. Once everyone thinks they have figured out the other groups language, we will have a final questionnaire.

^{Sample Questionnaire}

How did the other groups gesture language work?

What things makes this language good or bad?

Post Discussion

Are we going to have one? Tom?