I am teaching summer school to rising 2nd graders, and we have had a strong focus on reading practice with books on students' independent reading levels. I wanted to find an early reader with a character students could relate to to use as a read aloud in addition to our scheduled program. I found a series at the library about a Pakistani girl named Yasmin who has many fun adventures. The students were excited to have a break from phonemic awareness lessons, and so was I! Since we only have two more weeks of summer school, I'm also trying to incorporate art into our day. I found a beautiful book called Nadia's Hands by Karen English about a young Pakistani girl who is worried what her friends will think when she returns to school from a family wedding with mehndi designs painted on her hands. The themes of identity and acceptance are definitely ones familiar to many of my students. I haven't read the book to my class yet, but have already planned an activity in which they will get to design their own mehndi patterns on paper hands that they trace from their own. I was reflecting on how many of my students often struggle with feeling confident in their ability to draw, and tend to need lots of support. Knowing this, I decided to have a few practice sessions prior to our final mehndi drawing to build their confidence and ability. This morning I led a guided drawing of mehndi designs on my document camera and invited students to either copy my design or create their own on their whiteboards. This was a low pressure assignment, since they could easily erase any mistakes. A complete calm and quiet took over our drawing session as every student was lost in his and her own drawing process. Here is a photo of their work:
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