It's a Clue!

Here's the little hiker, Caden Robert

Our grandson got to spend a week with us this summer so we decided to take him to one of the most beautiful places on earth...Starved Rock State Park. We made this two-night stay which allowed us two days of hiking. What a little trooper he turned out to be, leading most of the way and so very proud of himself when he "discovered" the trail or canyon we were heading to.

As part of his adventure, as he liked to call it, he found some clues along the way. Clues to what both his grandpa and I were not sure of. Still it made sense to him and we "discovered" what a wonderful vocabulary he had! His first entry..."habitat." He had found a wonderful hole in the bottom of a tree and pulled out his notebook to document the clue. He then recorded the image with the digital camera we got him for his seventh birthday to later add to his record. Further along this same path, he found partially eaten acorns. Again, the notebook and camera were brought out of his backpack. Too cute! (Don't get the idea that all of our trails were this nice! It had been raining the week prior to our trek and most of the trails were muddy. We also visited several waterfalls in canyons that were quite muddy...lost one of Caden's shoes for awhile when it got sucked up!)

Last year we documented our week together by writing in a journal and taping our artifacts onto the pages. This year was different. He recorded his time with us digitally...down to his grandpa and I reading in bed at night. Still though, he wanted to write things down, to see it on a page with his own handwriting. Last year we had shared this responsibility, this year he took on the task. He did just finish first grade after all.

Our little digital native figured all of this out on his own. He also figured out on the drive to deliver him back to his parents in Wisconsin, that his camera could take video. This would have been nice to know when we were watching all of those beautiful waterfalls! There were different episodes of his grandpa and grandma and what they did to get in trouble as kids, what they liked to do in school, and what they enjoyed playing when they were kids - all filmed from the back seat of the car. The name of the show? "Caden, the Rememberer." He came up with it!

It's a clue...kids have stories to tell and these stories can be told through varied and combined media modes. Given the tools, just how creative can our own students become telling their own stories?