ABC EXPLORATION

An Alphabetic Exploration

The Big Room Looks at The Twenty-Six Letters
From Many Perspectives

By Kim Buchanan

Kim teaches children in our oldest grouping;  she co-teaches with Eileen Hynes and Kathi Titus

We began this year exploring the alphabet, which has been a very rich exploration.  

Time was devoted to studying the history of books and bookmaking in the Middle Ages  We were inspired by the monks of Europe and their dedication to preserving history and culture through script and its often accompanying illuminated letters. For eight hundred years they preserved the writings of the ancient civilizations and the teaching of the prophets until the work of scribes became a secular trade.

We took our first field trip and bused to Epiphany Church in the Madrona neighborhood where we were able to turn the pages of the first handwritten Bible to be produced in 500 years.   Several books of the St. John's Bible were there on temporary display.  The Bible is the only modern era illuminated version of Scripture and is housed at St. John's Benedictine Monastery in Minnesota.  A few copies are available worldwide.  These travel by appointment to various sites.

In the photo above, Lake and Park children look at actual copies of the St. John's Bible in the Epiphany Church library.

Influenced by the text at Epiphany, children began to adorn their own writing with extra flare. Signatures took on an entirely new look.

Eileen read a book that identified virtues. After thoughtful consideration, each child chose one to illuminate that expressed a virtue that that child deems one of her/his best qualities.   Names and virtues were illuminated by the children and put on display alongside self-portraits.

Self portraits by Franklin and Sadie

Additionally, children wrote alliterative sentences, one for every letter in the alphabet.  

A yak ate yucky yams and yogurt yesterday.      The purple polka-dotted pony ate a pancake while prancing the Hokey-Pokey. 

The skill of alphabetizing was practiced.  Dictionaries, indexes, and other alphabetized resources were used to assist the students in their writing.

Autumn alphabetizing word cards; Delphine and Luke involved in dictionary work.



Kathi brought in "hundreds" of alphabet books from the Seattle Public Library. After reading many of these, children worked in partnerships to create a "scroll movie" complete with an alliterative sentence for each letter, later edited and illustrated by a line drawing.

Kaitlin and Anya's ideas in draft form.

 Each uniquely reflects the creativity and chosen theme of its author.

    

Camille at work with her "movie" project.  Kaitlin and Anya's page appears above.

Our selection of "movies" includes those featuring families, pets, and forest animals.  One tells of alphabet letters suffering from one malady or another. Another is written backwards; yet another describes people in school.

Franklin reads each of his "film segments" to the audience, while Kim turns the manual "movie projector".  Battery powered lights illuminate the "screen".  Jonah waits his turn to read next.

Delphine and Jonah welcome attendees to the festival.

The idea to share our "movies" with the entire school led to the creation of The ABC Movie Festival. Posters and directive arrows lined the hallways.









Andersen ready to collect chestnuts.

                                                           

Chestnuts, which had been collected at the park, were in abundance and were used as currency to purchase tickets and popcorn. Tom supervised the preparation of the popcorn making. Ushers escorted our guests to their designated rows.



North Room children in the front row, enjoying their popcorn: George, Ruby, Olivia, Sophia, Finnian 


Children who attended Lake and Park last year recall learning of Egyptian hieroglyphs from last year's comprehensive study of Ancient Egypt.   As we concluded this unit, they learned about  pictographs of the Ancient Phoenicians.  Camille took them through two sessions where she introduced the Big Room to an alphabetic evolution, From early pictographs of the Phoenicians, they followed a handful of letters as they were adapted into Ancient Hebrew, followed by adaptation into Greek and, finally, adaptation into the Roman Alphabet  that is employed, in capital letter form, the world over.  Camille met with the North Room children as well, introducing this same line of thinking to them.