Art & Writing grade 3

I Am Jam

Grade 3

ELA and Visual Arts outcomes: CC3.1 (inquiry), CC3.4 (writing), AR3.1 (assess/reflection) and CC3.3 (speaking); CP3.7 and CP3.8.

After reading a book by Walter Dean Myers, Looking Like Me, students in Grade 3K at Connaught School explored Wordles to write their I Am Jams just like the character Jeremy. With the focus on word choice in their writing, they transformed their simple who-do-you-see-when-you-look-in-the-mirror lists into magnificent poems about themselves, full of attributes and descriptive words. After that, they combined their poems with visual art, by creating colorful backgrounds, playing with water paint and oil pastel. Finally, they added their photo portraits into the picture and the results were extraordinary – fun and beautiful multimedia projects that celebrate students’ unique personalities!

Inquiry Process:

Students made a list of words based on the book we read; they made their own lists and transformed their lists into art exploring word clouds. After that, using the list created based on the book, we expanded it into a poem (shared writing). Using a shared writing model, they created their own poems using resources available in the classroom and online (Thesaurus, wordsmyth.net, "word graveyard" in the classroom). 3K students are adding their final touch to their I Am Jam project: with the help of iMovie app, they are preparing for and creating a presentation to showcase their “jamming” to students and teachers at Connaught.

Tanja Bodanec Kolbas

Grade 3 Teacher
Connaught School