Superhero books are super popular with my young students. They love all things Avengers and Wonder Woman and Batman. These books are so popular that we have them all in a bin in the library. It is not worth taking the time to shelve them because kids are always looking to check them out. I wanted to think of a way to take something that my students are excited about and find a way to weave that into the curriculum.
Several years ago I attended an amazing professional development conference at High Tech High in San Diego, CA. How the school curriculum and student experience is crafted is inspiring. I incorporated so much about what I learned into my curriculum and work. I still receive High Tech High’s PD journal Unboxed, sharing projects and ideas. One project caught my eye, first graders at the school created and designed their own superheroes. This was the connection and inspiration I was looking for! Taking some ideas from the HTH description and making connections with the first grade class curriculum, a SUPER project was born!
The project started with exploring and reading lots of superhero books. We have a whole bin full of books on Batman, Wonder Woman, Captain America, Ms. Marvel and more. We read some books together and collected data. After we read one superhero book as a class we collected information on what the superhero’s power was and how they used their power to help others in their community. Using a large grid on the wall, we add our data. Then students worked in small groups with a teacher or a teaching assistant to read several more superhero books. They collected their data and then reported the information back to the class and added it to our wall of data. By the end of our information gathering process, first graders collected data on over 15 superheroes.
Next, we introduced a silent sort. We talked about how we were going to try and organize our data to help understand how superheroes help their community. We started by modeling the process. I took two of the sticky notes from our data wall of examples of how superheroes help their community. I then started to stick them on the walls in different categories that went together. For example, “stands up for people” and “helps people who do not have a voice” went in the same category. Students then worked to move, sort and organize the data into categories. When we finished sorting all the information, we discussed the categories and named the overall theme of each group, this helped us create a list of superhero traits. Each class generated a theme list of five to seven traits of a superhero.This collaborative work showed first graders how to “establish connections with other learners to build on their own prior knowledge in a learning group” (III.B.2) The list included: Standing up for others, taking care of people we know and don’t know, protecting animals, plants and all living things in the universe, being welcoming to all people in our community, standing up for people who cannot stand up for themselves and using their powers to help others and not for themselves.
The silent sort technique was a new strategy to share with students that showed how to “actively contribute to group discussions” (III.D.1). The sort is a great way to incorporate all students, especially those who need more time to process ideas and share their thinking. Organizing our ideas also helps students to collect their information and as a group decide on themes and ideas from this research, first graders “developed new understanding through engagement in a learning group.” (III.A.2)
Now that first graders collected and gathered information about superheroes they were ready to design their own superhero identity. First graders thought about how they would use their superhero powers to help the school community. After brainstorming ideas, they decided what super powers they would have, how they would use their superpowers to help people in the community and what their superhero name would be.
Next, using the Cricut software, students used shapes to design their own superhero logo. We then cut their logo out of press on vinyl and ironed their logo onto a cape!
The final step was taking their superhero picture. We placed a green screen cloth on the floor and had the student lie down on the floor in a superhero flying pose. We stood on a chair and took a picture from above using the green screen app Do Ink. Now they looked like real superheroes flying to the rescue. Students were able to keep their superhero capes and hopefully they will think about the superheroes they created and be inspired to help the community. I then created a website to share the project and our first grade superheroes with families and the community.
