Field "Experience"

Last Wednesday, we had the wonderful opportunity to take a field trip to an indoor playground in a neighboring town.  When you live in a place like Minnesota where it seems like spring will never come, you have to do what you can to get moving!  Thankfully, our special education department was interested in coming with us and, therefore, we could save on the cost of busing and admission. 

 

First of all, we had a great day, with no major incidents!  Everyone remembered our rules, played safely and enjoyed their time on the playground.  More importantly, this opportunity was invaluable to my students on so many levels. 

 

Our program is a drop-off/pick-up class.  We are not able to offer any transportation.  Because of this, for most of my students, this was their first time on a school bus.  We spent a lot of time before this trip talking about bus safety.  We made bus safety books and of course, loved singing The Wheels on the Bus.  I suggested that we make up our own verses that would help us remember the rules.  Some of my students came up with, “The people on the bus sit right down,” and “The driver on the bus says, 'Quiet, please!'” 

 

The opportunity to ride the bus was almost as exciting as the time at the playground!  It was also great to have a chance to ride with my students to hear their questions, fears and anticipation about kindergarten. 

 

I was so excited to have an hour of uninterrupted time to really PLAY with my students.  There were some big breakthroughs that I want to highlight:

 

Timothy is a student with a hard home life.  He is an English language learner, but he struggles even his native language.  There are times when he seems angry, withdrawn and frustrated.  It has been hard for me to get a clear picture of his skills because of these behaviors.  He had a fantastic time on our field trip!  He came to find me more than five times to show and tell me about something!  I figured during that one hour that he knows some conversational English:             

            “Karissa, come look.”

            “Help me!”

            “Play with me!”

             In addition, Timothy was able to identify the many of the colors we saw at the playground.  He labeled, “car,” “truck,” “fire truck” and “slide.” 

 

Now that we have been back at school, everybody likes to talk about our field trip.  Timothy often mentions the bus and all the playing he did that day.  I know that this trip was more than just a fun thing to do on a school day.  Our experience has created a shared experience that will continue to help us become an even better classroom community. 

Did you see your shadow today?

Groundhog’s Day is one of my favorite holidays.  There isn’t much to it, I suppose, but it has been celebrated at my house for as long as I can remember.  I love celebrating February 2^nd at school.  It is a great study in the changing seasons, shadows and hibernation!

 

Throughout the day, we do a lot of activities.  When the students arrive at school, they answer the question of the day, “Did you see your shadow today?”  We learned from a few families that shadow is “sombra” in Spanish.  During our group time we read a story about a groundhog that can’t get to sleep.  We discussed animals that hibernate.  The story has great predictable text that encourages students to decide whether or not the groundhog should be awake during various months of the year.  We also made groundhog headbands and used them to make shadows on our wall.  With a desk lamp we create the “sun” and our little groundhogs make shadows of various shapes and sizes.  To end our day we learn a song and fingerplay to help us remember what we have learned about groundhogs.  It goes like this:

 

 

                                                            I’m a little groundhog small and round,

                                                            I sleep in a burrow deep in the ground.

                                                            I look to find my shadow on Groundhog’s Day

                                                            To see if Spring is on its way!

 

Try it next year!  It is one of those, “just because” kind of holidays.  Not only is it fun and interesting, it incorporates many early childhood concepts. 

Spark

We have a student who has been in the hospital.  Although he is very new to our class, other students have noticed.  Today I explained his situation.  All of the sudden, a fairly quiet, reserved and sometimes day-dreamy student gasped and with a twinkle in his eye, he said, “I know! With all of your help we can make a card to send to Brian!  I know we can do it!”  And with great confidence, he set off to make a difference.

 

There is another student in my class that requires assistance from a special education assistant.  She, too, has captured the hearts of my other students.  My favorite observation occurred before our winter break.  Every day we have a circle time when we greet each student. The greeting we were working on starts with the students having to find their name stick on the carpet.  Then as I sing a song, they come and put the stick in my container.  I have a student who speaks very little English but, for some reason, that day he was very intent on helping Laura.  When I called her name he pointed at her stick and then stood up, took her hand and helped her up.  From that day on, he has helped her do her jobs in our classroom, plays with her, and asks about her when she is not at school.  I am not sure what sparked this connection but it continually affirms that love and kindness are universal and unconditional.  It doesn’t matter what language you speak or what challenges you are facing, you are able to show others that you care. 

Making Connections

"I'm making the water!" exclaimed José, as he ran his water logged paintbrush along the brick wall outside our school.

"Yes, you are painting with the water!" I reaffirmed, "You're painting on the bricks."

"The bricks!?" José replied, incredulously.  "Like the Three Pigs!"

This short exchange was eye-opening for me.  Last winter, just about a month after José joined my class, we did an unit about folktales.  A major focus of this unit was The Three Little Pigs; we read several versions of the book and integrated concepts from the story across our classroom -- we had bricks, sticks, and straw in the discovery center, a Three Little Pigs puzzle in the toys and games center, pig puppets in the block center, story retelling props in the library, and more.  We made a graph of our favorite characters from the book, acted out the story, found sets of "three" all around the classroom, talked about the materials used to make our homes and school, and made predictions about who could blow the bricks, sticks, and straw.  My students were completely enamored with the story, and having elements of the plot infused throughout our classroom prompted them to make connections between the book and their own experiences. 

While my students were experts about the Three Little Pigs last winter, I was definitely caught off guard when José brought it up this year!  He had limited expressive language skills in both English and Spanish when he came to school, and during our folktales unit he was only speaking in one to two word utterances.  I knew, by observing his play, that he understood the basic plot of the book, but it was hard for me to grasp his comprehension of the details.  The fact that he instantly made the association between the word "bricks" and The Three Little Pigs -- nine months after we had read the folktale -- was a real testiment to his deep level of understanding!

 

As I spent this past weekend planning for our next unit which focuses on winter, I strived to structure my lesson plans in such a way that my students could make connections across all subject areas and parts of the day.  Books about snow, hibernation, and seasonal changes will be at the focus of the unit, and my students will have ample opportunities to retell stories, interact with ice (and hopefully snow!), graph the temperature, make caves in the blocks center, prepare for winter in the dramatic play center, and more.  I hope that next year, when it starts to get cold outside, José will once again be able to make connections to what he learned last year in school! 

"A Circle's Like A Ball!"

“A circle’s like a ball, a circle’s like a ball…round and round, it never stops.  A circle’s like a ball.”  As you can imagine, I have this and all the other shape verses running through my head all of the time!  But you know what…they really work!  For the first time since I started teaching at the pre-kindergarten level, my students are interested and engaged in learning about shapes.  More importantly, they are retaining and transferring their knowledge.  When we see a ball in our large muscle room or on the playground, more than one student says, “Hey! It’s like a circle!”  Similarly when I get out our box of numbers I hear a few mention, “It’s like a square!”  

It seems that with the repetition and fun hand motions, my students have really taken to learning about shapes.  Sometimes I forget that many of them are experiencing these concepts, even the simplest of things, for the very first time.  I have to remember to take a step back and experience them through the eyes of a four or five year old.  It is easy to assume they must have heard about shapes at home or in another preschool setting or on TV.  But really, most of them are at a very basic level.  And those that are more advanced like to learn how to spell the shape or try drawing and cutting with shapes or play “Shape I spy!" 

Just goes to show you, the sometimes annoying, but always engaging songs, and fingerplays are just what our early learners need to be successful.   

"Maybe it's more than the moon..."

People may think I am crazy, but I tend to believe the position of the moon affects my students.  Research says there is statistically no relation, but I must say, what happens the day before and the day after a full moon just feels different! 

 

The last full moon happened last week on Tuesday.  My students, now used to our routine and the expectations for our class, were just a little off.  What is most interesting to me is that by “off” I don’t mean “bad.”  Let me give a few examples, to set the scene!

 

Randall came in to our morning class and was walking towards the writing table to do his morning work.  He reached the table.  Pulled out his chair, walked around to the other side of the chair, and then just seemed to fall over!  Certainly balance and motor coordination are developmental.  However, Randall is able, on most days, stand on one foot for more than 15 seconds. 

 

Darren was working in dramatic play and was serving his friends some coffee and cookies when he found a broom, green sunglasses and began to walk around our room inviting people to come with him on “an amazing journey.”

 

Sarah, a very quiet student in our afternoon class, was calmly completing a puzzle on the carpet.  All of the sudden she was chatting to no one and eventually said to me, “Karissa, I think I forgot my brain at home!”

 

 

These stories just skim the surfaces of the funny, confusing and odd things that I witnessed last week.  Because researchers and scientist have not found a significant relationship between human behavior and lunar cycles, I will have to be satisfied knowing that my beliefs only play into age-old folklore. 

 

The beauty of pre-kindergarten students is, they are growing physically, emotionally and cognitively with each passing day.  As an adult, you never know where their inquisitive and imaginative minds will take you.  Just when you think you have figured it out…the moon is full again!

Creative Problem Solving

"I'm angry!" Stephen yelled and stormed out of the blocks center.
"No." Ana replied calmly as she rolled the toy fire truck back and forth on the floor.
"I want the fire truck!  I'm so angry!" Stephen yelled and stomped his feet.
Ana continued rolling the truck, and Stephen glared at her.
"Stephen," I intervened, "I can tell how mad you are because your arms are crossed and you're using a loud voice.  I'm proud that you used your words."
"But I want the fire truck!" Stephen yelled and tears started streaming down his face.

 

Learning how to identify and solve social problems can be challenging for young children.  In my classroom, we spend a great deal of time at the beginning of the year discussing, role playing, and practicing how you can identify and solve problems.  Students learn how to label and identify emotions in themselves and other people (e.g. "I know that you are frustrated because your eyes are scrunched and your body is tight."), which is the foundation of problem solving.  They then learn what they can do to solve problems: calm themselves down, use words to explain what happened, and generate possible solutions.

Today, Stephen demonstrated some tremendous progress in terms of social problem solving.  At the beginning of last year when Stephen was angry, he would kick, hit, scream, and cry.  He did not know how to label his own emotions, and he had trouble taking the perspective of other people.  In this anecdote, Stephen is clearly able to label his own feelings, and, while his response is not ideal, it does keep everybody safe.  I took this brief "teachable moment" as a time to use physical and verbal cues to discern his feelings, and reinforce all his hard work.

From there, we were able to transform Stephen's frustration into a literacy activity.  I knew Stephen needed to distance himself from the fire truck and engage with different materials, so I suggested that he write Ana a note to tell her how he was feeling.  Stephen got excited about this idea, and quickly sat down to write.  "How do you spell Ana?" he asked.  I showed him her name tag, and he copied it correctly.  We then thought about what he wanted to tell her, and he decided on, "Let me play with that all by myself." We counted the words in his sentence and I wrote one line on his paper to represent each word.  Then Stephen began sounding out the message. He ended up with, "L M P W d o b msAf," -- essentially wroting the beginning sound for each word in his message, plus some middle and ending sounds in "myself."  He signed his name at the bottom, and we reread the message together. 

 

Stephen walked back over to the blocks center and proudly reread his note to Ana.  He gave her the paper, and she handed him the truck. Both students were happy, and they each learned a great deal in the process!

Mayala's Note

One of my main goals throughout the year is to teach my students that people write for a purpose.  In the real world, people don't just write for the sake of writing; we write to remember information, share stories, recall events, and more.  I provide my students with countless opportunities to learn about writing throughout the day -- from journaling, to modeled writing, to using the writing materials available in all of our centers -- and we talk about different reasons why we write in each context. 

In addition to all of these more intentional teaching opportunities, my students also learn from watching adults write in natural contexts likw when I take attendance or write anecdotal notes. I take anecdotal notes on my clipboard each day during center time. While most of the time this doesn't faze my students, sometimes they come over to look for their name or letters that they know in the note. Whenever they ask what I'm writing, I tell them, "I'm writing a note for myself so that I can remember all the great things that you're doing!"  This reiterates a purpose for writing and also makes my students excited.  I often read the note back to them -- they love to hear my record of their actions! 

Last week during center time, Mayala came up to me...

"Ms. Rosenbaum," she asked, "can I write on your [clip]board?"

"Sure, Mayala."  I replied, "What are you going to write?"

"I gotta write a note!"  She answered frantically. 

I gave Maya a clean sheet of paper, my clipboard, and my pen, and she got to work.  She started writing lines of B's, a's, Y's, and M's (letters from her name and her brother's name).  She wrote from left to right and top to bottom, and persisted for several minutes.  Mayala then brought her paper to me.

"What did you do?"  I asked, curious to see if she would give any more specificity about the note.

"I wrote you a note!" She exclaimed, so proud of herself.  "It says, 'I like when your feelings are pretty.  I like your friends in their clothes.'"  As Mayala read her note, she swept her finger from right to left and top to bottom (the opposite of when she was writing). 

Mayala's note was about feelings and friends, two topics that we had discussed in depth over the past two weeks.  Earlier that day we had read Todd Parr's The Feelings Book, and we talked about some of the clothes that the characters were wearing.  Mayala was clearly still thinking about the book, as her note was reflective of our conversation earlier in the day.  She also demonstrated an understanding of print awareness; she knew that she had to write letters (not pictures), and that her writing should progress from left to right.  She confused the print directionality while rereading her note, so tracking print is something that I will intentionally focus on for the next few weeks with Mayala. 

Through a combination of intentional teaching and natural writing observation, Mayala is beginning to learn the importance of writing to share ideas.  She is enthusiastic about learning how to write, and will be able to take advantage of countless opportunities to practice and improve her writing skills throughout the school year!

At sand and water I can...

At the beginning of the school year, I am very intentional about introducing all of our centers and classroom materials to my students. We started the first week of school by opening two centers - first toys and games, then art - and have been introducing approximately one new center per week. Each time we introduce a new center, we do a "guided discovery" of the center and its materials. The guided discovery allows students to: generate ideas about what to do in the center, practice executing their ideas, and discuss how they used the materials. I find it to be an extremely helpful technique because it encourages students to be creative and take ownership of their ideas. Plus, they are eager to try out their ideas in the center and it encourages them to use the materials appropriately!

This week, we introduced sand into our "Sand and Water" center. As part of our discussion during the guided discovery, we generated a list of ideas about how to use the sand. Here are the ideas that my students came up with:

At sand and water I can...
Pick up the sand (Stephen)
Pick it up high (Suniah)
Build a big house (Aaliyah)
Make it big (Jose)
Make a castle (Mayala)
Put it in your fingers (Julia)

I drew a small picture to represent each idea next to the words, and included the contributing student's name next to their idea. We then hung the poster in the sand and water center, and I modeled how to reference it for ideas during center time. Soon I heard Makiera say, "Look, I can pick it up high!" as she pointed to the poster. And later that afternoon, when one student started spilling sand on the floor, Mayala said, "Don't put it on the floor! You can build a castle!"

This method of writing with students -- especially when used in conjunction with a guided discovery -- is an easy way to incorporate functional print into the classroom. Students begin to learn that people write for a purpose, and they develop an understanding of how people can use print in their daily lives. Rereading the writing also reinforces print directionality and the differences between letters, words, and sentences. All of these concepts represent important early literacy skills that will prepare my students to become excellent readers and writers!

"They're gonna watch the ABC TV!"

It's hard to believe that we have been in school for a month! We currently have seven centers open in our classroom -- discovery, cooking, art, sand and water, blocks, toys and games, and library -- and will open the remaining two centers -- dramatic play and computers -- next week. Even in just a month of school, some of my students have already started to develop their "favorite" centers. Ana loves to work in library, Liliana enjoys drawing intricate pictures in art, and Suniah can most often be found in the block area.

While each center naturally lends itself to a specific type of activity, it is important to remember that every domain of development and academic content area can be addressed in every center. For example, Suniah has been working in blocks fairly consistently for the past two weeks. She builds small houses with foam blocks, makes furniture out of bristle blocks, and assigns family roles to the miniature people. Suniah likes to work with her peers, but she sometimes gets frustrated when they don't follow her directions. Having observed Suniah in blocks for several days, I knew that she was naturally getting practice identifying shapes, comparing quantities, and thinking creatively about problems. These are all important cognitive development skills that my students learn in pre-k.

During center time this week, I made a note that I wanted to observe Suniah and join her play to facilitate some more social/emotional and language development. Suniah went to blocks at the very beginning of center time today; she made a flat rectangle of blocks, added several bristle blocks in the middle for "beds," and lined the miniature people up in rows. Over in art, Aaliyah started talking about the TV shows that her mother likes to watch. Suniah apparently heard this, because she soon announced, "Okay, guys, it's time to watch TV!" This was my opportunity to jump in.

"Suniah," I remarked, "did you hear Aaliyah talking about her mommy watching TV?"
"Yeah, we're gonna watch TV!"
"Oh, is there a TV in your house?" I asked, gesturing to her block house.
"Nooooo, it's right here!" Suniah exclaimed with exasperation, gesturing to our alphabet chart on the wall. "They're gonna watch the hippopotamus channel!"
"The hippopotamus channel? With the letter H?"
"Yeah! They're gonna watch the ABC TV!"
At this point Stephen, Jose, and Julia came over to Suniah to see what all the excitement was about.
"Sit down," Suniah instructed the other students "It's time to watch the ABC TV! Now we're gonna watch B.../b/ /b/ baby!" Suniah confidently pointed to the "B" card on our alphabet.
"Now C.../c/ /c/ caterpillar channel!" exclaimed Stephen, eager to get in the game. Suniah obliged, and pointed to the letter C.
This process went on for several minutes; Stephen, Jose, and Julia eagerly called out letters and Suniah quickly pointed to the letters, adding in any information that her friends may have missed (such as the letter sound or corresponding picture).

With a little bit of careful "kid watching," I was able to determine what developmental domains Suniah needed to focus on in centers, and I was able to naturally integrate those domains into her play. She practiced working collaboratively with peers, taking directions from others, and identifying letter names and sounds. In the future, if Suniah continues to work frequently in blocks, I will encourage her to read, write, make patterns, build more complex structures, etc. -- the possibilities are endless!