We're doing just a little more assessment in Kindergarten, trying to make sure that the few minutes of actual teaching I've had time to do between all the assessments has been worth it. The children are supposed to answer some questions about the position and location of things like counting bears and unifix cubes. This is fairly straightforward if you're a fluent English speaker ("at the top," "on the bottom") and even more straightforward if you're at a certain developmental age and stage ("right here," accompanied by a look that says, "What's wrong with your eyes, teacher?")
Then there are the kids who are positioned-and-located somewhere in between, like Bryon. He recently arrived from an English-speaking African country and is "in progress" on this measure of mathematical concept acquisition.
Me, with an encouraging smile and a flourish as I place a yellow Unifix cube beneath but not touching my chin:
And where is the yellow cube, Bryon?
Bryon:
Umm....That might be a trick question. [with sudden insight] I know! Before your neck!
Maybe Bryon's trick answer makes you think of a poem, too. Leave it in the comments and I'll round up on Friday.
*******************
Before my neck
there was just a little necklet
which I wore laced with pearls
of baby powder, jewels
of new baby blink, charmed
with welcome kisses
Heidi Mordhorst 2011
all rights reserved
Just when I'm wondering what I'll post, something pops up, like they know I'm listening! It's spooky.
Yesterday after reading a book about what didn't frighten a certain boy at bedtime, we were talking about why it was the little brown owl at the end that DID frighten him. I wondered whether it was because the owl was the only
real creature out in his tree, "because I know that there's no such thing as a golden gorilla or a unicorn or a green goblin, and I know there are no pink dinosaurs, at least not in our time--"
Jordan:
"Yeah, dinosaurs were on the earth long ago, back in the--in the--1950's."
Ms. Mordhorst:
"This morning we're going to do something new called Weekend Snapshot. A snapshot is an old-fashioned name for a camera picture. Put your camera up, close your eyes and look at your weekend. What did you play this weekend? What did you eat this weekend? Where did you go? When you find one important picture, press the button and take a snapshot. Now draw and write it on this paper."
[some minutes later, empty paper]
"Sean, what important little thing are you going to draw?"
Sean:
"I don't know."
[looooong pause]
"I don't know when
was the weekend."
Perhaps you, too, occasionally lose track of whole chunks of time.....Leave your poetic response in the comments.
This week's OIK Tickler is from Noah, who watched closely as I sorted a set of apples. We had already sorted by color and by size; "what's my rule for sorting this time?"
Pointing, Noah said, "Those are the sticking-up-things, and
those are the not-sticking-up-things."
He was right: one group of apples had stems and the other didn't. What can we make of his general-yet-specific description? Post your responses in the comments!
Love the idea of creating poems about what's "overheard in kindergarten." And this one is terrific. :-)
Hey, Heidi,
Great idea for prompts! My poem veered off into someone giving a dog a piece of bacon. Weird how my wild mind works! Doesn't matter. I couldn't gotten there without your yellow cube.
Thanks!