The two best days of my year so far have been the Day of Play, a Lower School community experience almost replicating Caine's Arcade, and my full day Friday in Junior Kindergarten. If you want your daily challenges to go away or you simply want to view the joy in life, spend your day with 4 year olds; it truly is a day of smiles, fun and laughter, with plenty of learning along the way.
What was really cool was the balance I felt between the "traditional" way of approaching learning and life and the "21st century way." Traditional: It was the first day the students had the "post office" as a center. The students practiced addressing envelopes, and mailing letters and packages. There was also plenty of rhymes, songs, calendar time, choral repetition, listening to stories, and counting the dots on a dice. Following the traditional way of life, I decided to send the Jkers a letter to each of their homes, via the U.S. postal service, thanking them for welcoming me Friday and sharing with them some of my observations. 21st Century: students practiced literacy skills via the Scribble My Story app and reinforced shapes via the Geoboard app; durring the math lesson students collaborated and worked togther to teach eachother about the shapes, as well as to simply help each other understand how to use the iPad app. Junior Kindergarten teacher Leslie Viente shared that she had connected with other Kindergarten teachers via twitter and was organizing a way to Skype with other classes during center time - to see how others around the country learn, and utilize this precious "traditional" block of time. I, too, was tweeting my observations throughout the day, which led to a connection and posting on the "math Learning Center" website from Colorado, and their Pinterst Page, on our use of the Geoboard. I love this balance, embracing new practices while maintaining the "regular way of doing things." Here is my letter to the JK students:
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February 3, 2013Dear
JK Friends:
Thank
you so very much for welcoming me into your classroom last Friday. You are a
busy, busy group. I had so much fun and learned a great deal! In centers I
learned how to address and mail an envelope. Please check this envelope out and
let me know if I set it up correctly. I learned the G sound. Let me add to your G word list. These are two words that
may be helpful for International Week, Game
and Ghana. You will be playing lots
of games next week! And, did you
know that lots of Mrs. Cardell’s clothing comes from Ghana? You can ask her at Inspiration. PE was lots of fun; I have
not pushed myself around in the scooter for a long time. It was so cool to try
out two new apps with you, the Geoboard
where we learned some shapes, and the Scribble
My Story, where you were able to dictate and illustrate a story. It was the
best Friday ever! See you soon.
Sincerely,
Dr.
Isabel
