We have been doing our afternoon lessons for a little over two months now and I have learned quite a bit. I thought I would share some of these epiphanies with you. For the observant among you, this is not the Halloween Post that I had sort of promised. But, don't worry, I'll get to that. Probably around Christmas.
When I was taking education classes in college, a big focus was how to make a lesson incorporate as many other subjects as possible. Generally for math we'd hit English and History by saying that we'd have the students write a report about a mathematician. <Skadoosh! Top that English teachers! What are you going to do? Have the students calculate their own grades? OOOOO! Long division with decimals. On a calculator. Fancy!>
These lessons have come back to me as I have done letter collages with the boys. I can think of few things that can cover as many topics as a letter collage. We hit geography (states), math (numbers or shapes), vocabulary, religion, and probably some that I haven't realized. The letter "O" gave me the opportunity to discuss opposites with the boys. I just wish I had realized this a little earlier. It was only around the letter "O" that I started coloring in all of the states that began with the letter, not just one or two.
Another thing I have learned is that the letter "C" is a troublemaker. Dom is really good at telling you the letter that starts a word, but C always gives him trouble. And don't get me started on CH. Good grief! But, truth be told, I'm much more frustrated by this than Dom. He just goes on his merry way not realizing that the fact C exists in our language just made his life about 10 times harder.
Something I am particularly proud of is that I have figured out what to do with all of these otherwise useless scraps of construction paper. Make mosaics! I let the boys practice their cutting skills and print off coloring pages with large spaces. The first time we did this, I free handed a rainbow. What is the side of the brain that provides the artistic talent? Whichever side it is, is my weak side. So, printing off pictures worked much better. I have three lovely fish themed pictures. With jewels for eyes.
Finally I've learned to just relax about getting through a lesson. If the boys aren't interested, we just take a break or I let them pick out something they want to learn about. This has lead to a lot of discussions about spiders, frogs, and hot lava.
3 comments:
First comment!! I'm actually going to share this with some of my team members who work w/ the younger students...though, I don't think our teachers get to take a break until after school is out :). I'm glad you do!!
wat to go, Idaho!!! (Okay, I should have made somthing rhyme with Kansas... but you get the idea) Dom is going to be the smartest kiddos in his class when he goes to school!
Love to read these and to re-read them while waiting for the next post. You are setting the bar high for stay at home moms! And preschools, who DON"T get to change their lesson plans due to a change in interest.
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