Over and over I hear the concerns of other primary teachers that kids no longer have time for "play" to learn those important social skills necessary to be successful. Even worse, some use a great deal of their day incorporating play, but are not really facilitating that social learning unless there is conflict. We haven't abandoned the social emotional goals. Kids don't have to be playing with Lincoln Logs to demonstrate their understanding of those social emotional goals. Even more often kids who are five are still very independent in their play. All the boys may be circled around the Lego table, but they are all building their own creations. Independent within the crowd.
It takes a plan and some practice to help kids collaborate. We establish some rules and practice them. Some kids are masters at collaboration from the start and others need continued review of the steps every time. The conversations I get to listen in on from my students as they brainstorm together and develop writing ideas or share books together can be very sophisticated. They are taking time to get to know each other, building friendships and usually producing some kind of product that they are proud of TOGETHER!
We have been studying Mo Willems this month and really using our investigative skills to study the characters he has developed, build our vocabulary, and ask questions. This week the students are going to be collaborating on a project that will allow them to collaborate and create. I am so excited to see and experience their learning.
I read a quote this week over and over on twitter from the Learning Without Frontiers 2012 speaker Noam Chomsky..."It's not what you cover, but what you discover." I am excited to see what we all discover this week in kindergarten foundations.
Until later~
b~
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