Kindergarten Coup

Phew! November has proven to be the busiest month yet in the ICS masters program. Between an increase in the number of assignments due and the greater responsibilities of the Block 2 practicum, it hasn’t left a whole lot of time to catch my breath let along update the ol’ blog. And November isn’t finished yet, nor is the work, so this will be a quick one.

You’ll recall that Block 1 placed me in a grade 3 classroom in an inner city school. For Block 2, I am in the junior/senior kindergarten class in a much wealthier neighbourhood. Although kindergarten is at the opposite end of the elementary school spectrum of the grades I’d ultimately like to teach (grades 5 and 6), I am having a ball! The children are all fascinating and I’m enjoying the creative challenge of finding activities that engage their curiosity and fleeting attention spans.

The kindergarten teacher, who is an exemplary teacher to see in action, introduced me to a book called Alphabet Under Construction by Denise Fleming, which is about a mouse who builds each letter out of different materials. We developed that idea into a letter-building activity for the students.

I read the story and then asked the children to work with me in pairs to build each letter of the alphabet (upper AND lower case) using classroom materials. Our foreman for this project was a construction-worker puppet I named Alpha-Bert:

With Alpha-Bert overseeing their efforts, children got to choose their building materials. This kindergarten is very well stocked, so there was no shortage of knickknacks and doodads to use. Many students are still learning their letters, so they needed to work from a blueprint, but in the end every pair succeeded in making two letters.

Children picked plastic letters randomly out of a toolbox (of course). There was one letter left at the end so I made it myself. How appropriate that the “W” was made by Mr. Wichman.

I’m currently arranging the photos into an alphabet book. Next week, Alpha-Bert will return to the class and share the book with the students. I’ll also me making laminated letter cards out of each photo. I’ll cut them in half for students to match upper case and lower case letters or arrange them into words. Good fun!

This Block 2 practicum placement continues through to the first week of December. At the end of that week, I’ll learn in what grade I’ll be placed for Block 3, which begins the first Monday in January. I’m counting on the time off in early December to complete all my major assignments, each due on December 19 before the university closes for the holidays.

Almost there. Double-phew!