By Margaret Epoch

Everything has a beginning and this adventure was no different. It was the beginning of a new year, the beginning of my Master of Education Degree Program and the beginning of the Project Approach for me.

Preliminary Planning

The decision about what the topic of study would be was on my mind right from the start of this university course. I could not move forward until I had a topic. I had a lot of ideas, but they just did not spark any interest in me. In the second week of classes I was listening to everyone brainstorm topic ideas. Then someone said, " last year my friend took this course and her class studied shoes". That was the spark I needed. At that moment, I remembered the shoe collection that I had inherited six years ago. This was a collection that contained 300 shoes of all descriptions. I knew from that moment on that my twenty-six Grade Two students' minds would be engaged in an in-depth study of shoes. A letter was sent to the parents, informing them that we would be exploring the topic of shoes using the Project Approach. It also included an invitation to families, relatives and friends, to share their expertise on shoes.

Phase 1

Katz and Chard state, "the main thrust of the first phase of project work is to establish common ground among the children by pooling the information, ideas, and experiences the children already have about the topic" (Katz and Chard, page 82). I wanted to make sure that my students were thrust into this first phase by sharing, talking, drawing, writing, and constructing about their prior experiences and raising questions on the basis of current knowledge on the topic of shoes. I incorporated the five structural features (Discussion, Field Work, Representation, Investigation and Display) into the development of my shoe project.

DISCUSSION:

On February 1, 1999 I introduced the shoe project with a simple story about the time I lost my shoe. I took off my shoe and held it up as I told my story. Halfway through my story a few children took off their shoes. They were already interested in what was going to take place in the next six weeks. Before I finished my story, I could sense that students wanted to tell me a shoe story of their own. I asked if anyone had a true shoe story to tell the class. About half the class put up their hands. My students told the most interesting, diverse, funny, sad and totally awesome shoe stories.

Erika told a shoe story about learning to tie her shoe. Her mother would show her every day how to tie her shoes, but she didn’t get it. Then one day she went in the living room by herself. She tied her shoes. She had a big smile on her face when she told this story.

David told a story about the kinds of shoes he wore in Chile. He described the leather. He said he might be able to bring a pair of these shoes to school for us to look at. We said wonderful.

Ryan told a story about the day he tried rollerblading in the house. He was rollerblading down the hall making black marks. He got in trouble from his mom.

Joelle told a story about the day her house burned down last month. All her shoes were burned in the fire. She had a hard time telling this story, so I helped her.

Shelby told a story about the time she got her new shoes. She wanted shoes like the ones that the Spice Girls wear. She got her wish.

Stephanie told a story about the tap shoes that Spanish dancers wear. Her family is from Costa Rica. She may be able to show us the tap shoes."

Then I held up a pair of antique leather shoes. I told the students two things I wondered about these shoes. I said, "I wonder who wore these shoes and I wonder who made these shoes". Then I asked the students what they might wonder about and recorded it on chart paper.

Marcel wondered if they would fit him.

Megan wondered what they felt like.

Kaylyn wondered how long it would take to make these shoes.

Kaitie wondered how much they cost.

Shelby wondered how long the shoelaces were.

Martin wondered where I got them.

David wondered what they were made of.

FIELD WORK:

The Field Work in Phase 1 consisted of collecting and listening to shoe stories from a Grade 3 and 4 class, other teachers, the principal, the secretary, and other visitors. During this Field Work time a student came up with an interesting idea. He explained that when visitors come to our door, we would ask them for a shoe story. I posted a chart on the back of the door and we collected shoe stories. Stories ranged from how to say shoes in French to how the Speech Pathologist got a blister from her new shoes.

"The stories of children’s experiences told in the classroom are often much enriched by the conversation which the children have with their parents about the events remembered" (Chard, page 18). For the children to experience this concept, a homework assignment was sent home. Parents were asked to write a true shoe story in their child’s shoe book. Students also asked their parents for any other experiences with shoes and if they could bring real shoes for a shoe display. A variety of interesting shoe stories and real shoes came back. The stories ranged from a mouse in a shoe to counting how many shoes were in their house. We had a lot of laughs that day.

REPRESENTATION:

After the shoe stories were finished, I asked the students to design a cover for their shoe book. I brought in catalogues and the students made a shoe collage on the front cover. This notebook would be used for written stories, reflections, drawings, and any other interesting shoe trivia that the students wanted to include.

During this time, the students drew the antique shoes that I had brought in. Some of the students sketched their own shoes, and traced the soles of their shoes. The students' true shoe stories were recorded in the shoe notebook.

Another way I gathered previous knowledge from my students was by using a topic web. The children brainstormed words related to shoes. They put each word on a post-it note and stuck it to chart paper.

 As they added the shoe words, I organized them into sub-topics. This topic web helped me understand the student’s expertise and gave me a better picture of just how in-depth the study of shoes was going to be!

INVESTIGATION:

I asked my students what they would like to know about shoes. I recorded the questions on the board. Later, I transferred them onto chart paper. This chart paper was left up for the duration of the project, so students could add to the list. During Phase 1, I continued to help the students formulate questions that we could investigate. Here are some of the questions that were posted in my room. I was amazed at the questions asked. This would never have happened with my theme approach.

Shoe Questions:

1. How are shoes made?
2. Where do the Spice Girls buy their shoes?
3. How are slippers made?
4. How many kinds of shoes are there?
5. Do we get to study about horseshoes?
6. How do you use that thing that you put in the back of your shoe? (shoehorn)
7. How many shoes are there in the school?
8. How much do the queen's shoes cost?
9. How do they get the metal piece on the tap shoe?
10. What kind of shoes do they wear in Chile?
11. What size are my shoes?
12. Where is the shoe factory?

I realized some questions would have to be weeded out and some questions might not get answered during the life time of the project.

DISPLAY:

The student’s work and real objects were displayed around my room. Students posted sketches on the magnetic blackboard at the front of my room. The chart paper was taped to the back of my door to record visitor shoe stories. The shoe question chart was posted on the bulletin board. The shoe topic web was prominently displayed. The shoe books were kept on the shoe display table for others to look at.

PHASE 2

"The second phase of the project is concerned mainly with providing children new firsthand experience and helping them think about it in many interesting ways that stimulate purposeful activity and involve the use of various skills" (Katz and Chard, page 121). I wanted to live up to the expectations of this statement, so I planned interesting Field Trips that would engage children’s minds in new learning. There would be a snowshoe field trip, a shoe expert speaker, a visit to a shoe collection display, participation in Jump Rope for Heart and a visit to The Fourth Annual Virtual Sneaker Day website

During this phase I had the privilege of contributing to a paper written for the electronic Early Childhood Research and Practice Journal, Volume 1, (Chard, 1999). This provided much stimulating dialogue between my students and colleagues. We enjoyed preparing photographs, drawings and written shoe work and eventually, there we were on the Internet! Sylvia Chard’s paper, "From Themes to Projects", can be viewed at www.ecrp.uiuc.edu/v1n1/chard.html. We welcomed this additional encouragement in our shoe project adventure.

DISCUSSION:

Before we went on the Field Trips, we prepared ourselves by reviewing safety concerns, note taking, interviewing techniques, questions to be asked, conduct, participation and any other concerns that centered around preparation for an enjoyable field experience. Listening was stressed as an important tool for learning new information. I even had to remind myself to be quiet and really listen to what the students had to say.

FIELD WORK:

The Field Work went as planned. Children experienced walking in snowshoes, most for the first time; learning how to measure their foot; viewing a collection of three-hundred shoes; decorating their runners; skipping until they were exhausted; interviewing numerous people about shoes; visiting the Virtual Sneaker website; and marveling at the sight of themselves on the Internet. During and after the field visits, my students used the recording format for representation that included; writing, sketching, rubbings, numbers, measures, diagrams, processes, photographs, and items to bring back. This helped us stay focused on the task at hand. The clipboard was used during all the field work. It became an essential tool for collecting information to bring back to the class.

REPRESENTATION:

A large portion of the shoe project engaged the children in representation activities. Children were given the opportunity to explore new learning at their own level of understanding. Students used a variety of recording techniques to learn about their experience. During the snowshoe investigation, students sketched memory drawings of a snowshoe and later sketched a real snowshoe.

They made rubbings of the mesh, counted pairs of snowshoes, measured the length and width, made a list of sights that they had seen, and carried back a pair of snowshoes to display in our class. I took numerous photographs of students putting on snowshoes, taking off snowshoes, helping one another, falling down, walking, jotting notes, and just plain participating.

They wrote in their shoe book about any surprises that they experienced in the field.

The shoe collection field visit stimulated poems about shoes, sketches of their favorite shoe from the collection, rubbings, counting shoes, labeling shoe parts, modeling clay shoes, charcoal etchings of shoes, graphs, lists, and drawings of shoes from other countries. An interesting Venn diagram (made with two hula-hoops overlapping) showed the children’s understanding of similarities and differences of a set of shoes. Again, I took a roll of film, so the children could remember these experiences.

A parent who had worked in a shoe store for a number of years gave the students an informative shoe presentation. After the presentation, the students represented their new learning by measuring each other's foot, building dioramas from shoeboxes, recording shoe sizes in our class, sketching shoehorns, graphing shoe sizes, and writing a journal entry about the what they learned from the shoe expert. A thank you note was designed and sent to the parent shoe expert.

During the last week of February, my students participated in a number of activities related to Jump Rope For Heart. They watched a skipping demonstration by professional skippers from Wildwood, Alberta. They decorated their shoes for Sneaker Day. I never knew they could change the look of a shoe as much as they did that day. The students counted money collected from skipping pledges, gave out prizes, and wrote an entry about the Jump Rope for Heart activities that were held that week.

INVESTIGATION:

After each field trip my class investigated the initial questions that were posed. With the help of parent volunteers and the librarian, we went to the library to research snowshoes, shoes from other countries, newspaper articles on shoes, parts of the shoe and other topics related to shoes. Some students took out books, such as The Wizard of Oz, Cinderella, The Elves and the Shoemaker, and Puss In Boots. The most interesting investigating project that my class experienced was when I cut a running shoe in half. I knew we would learn more about how a shoe is put together by doing this. The students, just could not get enough of examining that half a shoe, over and over again. The Internet was used extensively for investigating different aspects of the initial questions. We found everything from the web page of the Wildwood Skippers to the Bata Shoe Museum in Toronto. The Internet provided us with shoe knowledge from other countries, how shoes were made, the history of shoes and other tidbits of shoe information. When new information was found, a hard copy was made and put in a binder for other students to read.

DISPLAY:

Displaying the student’s work became an important focal point of the shoe project. My classroom became filled with samples of the new experiences that the children had participated in. Every corner, every bit of wall space, every bulletin board, and every table became filled with shoe information. My classroom was starting to look like a museum, as one colleague stated. The displays included samples of the children’s work from each Field Trip. The displays gave us a sense of where we had begun, what we had collected during six weeks of study and the process that had gone on to get us to where we are today. Nothing was hidden away. It was out in the open for all students to share and feel proud of their own learning.

PHASE 3

It did happen, that feeling that all good things must come to an end. The shoe project had to end for this period of time. For some it may have been only the beginning of a more intense investigation of shoes and for others it would just be the end of the memorable shoe experience that happened in Ms. Epoch’s Grade Two class. It was up to each student as to where their learning would go from here. For all my students I wanted a lasting impression left of the adventures we had sharing this project. I would hold a Shoe Open House to celebrate their learning.

DISCUSSION:

I discussed my idea of having a Shoe Open House on March 12, 1999 with my students. They became very excited. Together we discussed what needed to be done to hold an enjoyable and informative Open House. Invitations were sent out. I told them they were the experts on their work and that they would be sharing this knowledge with their parents, relatives, friends, other students in the school, teachers, office staff, principal and any other visitors who wished to come.

FIELD WORK:

The final Field Work activity was to evaluate the project through the eyes of the outside groups of people that came to the Open House. I told my students to listen for comments about the project, and watch people’s faces. I listened for comments as the visitors toured around our room. As the students dragged their parents around the room, I could hear; "Look what I made", Look what I drew", " Watch me walk in the wooden shoes", "Read my shoe story", "Find us on the Internet", and the most iterated comment, " Look what Ms. Epoch did to this shoe. She cut it in half!" Of course, the parents rose to the occasion and offered positive and enthusiastic comments about their child’s work. The children were proud of their work and so was I. The visitors commented on how much work had been put into the project. We viewed our shoe project as an overwhelming success.

REPRESENTATION AND DISPLAY:

I would like you to visualize each display and representation as I take you on a tour of my room. As you approached my room you were invited to follow the footsteps that the students had cut out. You were also given a red licorice shoelace to chew on as you walked around. That was a big hit! Each Center and Bulletin board had a mini display highlighting different parts of the shoe project. I am including a list of the sights displayed in my room during Open House:

• Invitation
• Shoe Topic Poster(caterpillar with shoes)
• Internet articles collected by students
• Early Childhood Research and Practice Journal (hard copy)
• Computer station for viewing Early Childhood and Practice Journal
• Article about a duck born with no feet
• Student’s stories responding to duck story
• Interesting signs, like "Beware of Shoes!"
• Ski boots to try on
• Stained glass shoe in the window
• Holland display
• Shoe web
• Shoe poems
• Drawings of antique shoes
• Memory drawings of snowshoes
• Drawings of real snowshoes
• Clay shoes made by the students
• Paintings of shoes
• Display of baby shoes, including student’s baby shoes
• Cowboy boot display, with drawings
• Display of glass, China, and miniature shoes in cabinet
• Shoebox dioramas
• Listening Center( shoe songs and stories)
• Binder filled with drawings from shoe collection
• Antique shoe display
• Kinds of shoes list
• Charcoal etchings of shoes
• Rubbings from snowshoes and sole of student’s shoes
• Christmas tree with shoe ornaments
• Native footwear display
• Visitor shoe story chart
• Newspaper articles
• Shoe books, pictures
• Snowshoe display
• Venn model from hula hoops
• Graph of shoe sizes in our room
• Shoe calendar
• Map of the world showing shoes from different countries
• Question chart
• Clipboard entries of Field Trips
• Runner cut in half
• Imprint of shoes
• Jump Rope for Heart Video

Two items I would like to mention separately are the student’s shoe book and the photographs that I took. Each student’s shoe book will be a memorable keepsake. Inside each book are shoe stories, drawings, lists, poems, jot notes, photographs, and interesting work that each student had collected. During the Open House each student shared this book with someone. During the six weeks, I snapped over a hundred photographs of the students engaged in shoe project work. The photographs were displayed on tri-fold stands around the room. These photographs provided a chance for sharing and reflecting. It really is true that a photo is worth a thousand words. Every time a photograph was looked at, it was like the event came alive again and the students got to relive the experience. The memories captured on these photographs will last a lifetime.

Bibliography

Chard, Sylvia C. (1998) The Project Approach: Managing Successful Projects. New York: Scholastic.

Chard, Sylvia C. "From Themes to Projects" Early Childhood Research and Practice Volume 1, Number 1 1999 www.ecrp.uiuc.edu/v1n1/chard.html.

Katz, Lilian G. & Chard, Sylvia C. (1989) Engaging Children’s Minds: The Project Approach New Jersey: Ablex Publishing Corporation.

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Last revised: November 8, 1999