Sometimes the best part of my job is change. That is, watching the changes that occur over the course of a year (or 2) in a child. At the beginning of the year Leader Day meant bringing a toy to share and being first in line. It has evolved to taking charge of the morning circle and requesting "Focus Fox" being on them (our way of asking for the class' attention). This morning Rowan turned to me and said, "I will need The Hand so we can begin.". Astonished, I handed him "The Hand" and watched him take command. He needed no help, encouragement or reminders from me to guide his classmate through the morning routine. I would have cried with pride but about that time he moved over to the days of the week and said, " A one, a two, a one,two three..." and they all broke out singing their song. Tears turned to laughter but my chest is still puffed out with pride and if you listen carefully you may hear me crowing.
Rowan's Show & Share was his mother's favorite Dr. Seuss book "The Butter Battle Book". Adults will recognize the book as a political statement about the absurdities over which many wars, arguments and prejudices find their base. To children it is about silly Yooks and Zooks fighting over which side of bread to properly add butter. This led to a discussion that maybe doing things the same way shouldn't be an issue. After all wouldn't it be boring if all of us were the same? Numerous examples came from the children but when having the same color notebooks was mentioned I heard an audible gasp in the room. Their faces reflected the horror they were feeling and I hoped mine didn't reflect a desire to laugh.
Really? The color of one's notebook is that important? I guess when you can't yet read and names often start with the same letter, the color of one's notebook might be a bit of their identity. Perhaps they understood the book better than I had. Maybe recognizing that they each have their own identity is the first step in respecting others.
We also had some academics occurring in the classroom today. I introduced the letter K today. My letter box contained a koala, a kangaroo, my blue kazoo (which I played),and a king puppet. They guessed the letter immediately but when they tried to think of words beginning with the/k/ sound they were shocked at the number that actually began with C. We decided this "borrowing" of K's sound so much was quite unfair.
Last week we began adding letters to -an and found 12 words - including the name Xan. Today they wrote out their letter cards for their word files. Instead of making this a large group activity, I took them in groups of 3 and 4 so we could work on letter formation. Since most of the class is not yet ready to write with pencils they are using markers to write on oversized lined cards. Their letter formation today was so much better than their first attempts that even they noticed.
Thursday is Book Buddy day with Lena's class. They love pairing up for a story and then conversation. I have noticed a real change on the playground. Both classes will run up to their buddies to give a hug and then run off to play. Ya gotta love it!
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