Keeping it simple. Black paper, white lines and practicing scissor safety- that explains our first day of Kindercutting.
I took all of your Kindercutting advice (we definitely sang a lot and went through lots of paper, they practiced on copy paper too.) My mentors helped me draw white lines on papers (I had a bunch prepared but we adjusted as we saw the students levels.) Then they went at it. Paper everywhere. There are about four kids in Kindergarten so far that I am going to have to buy special scissors for. I also have an extra 1/2 hour this week when I'll pull them aside, show them how to use the plastic scissors (which I have to try to find tomorrow, any suggestions) and practice. (I will follow up with a phone call home that goes something like this "your child is the light of my life, now could you help them learn to use scissors?." There are a few who I'm sure have never touched scissors in their life.
The thing about Kindergarten is. . . THERE ARE NO PARAS. So we have some students who are obviously special needs but we can't get them the one to one they need until next year when all the paper work is filled out. General paras in Kindergarten were cut due to budget a few years ago. I have some wonderful, awesome, super, my hero mentors (5th graders) who bring their lunch and miss their recess just to help these little ones. I definitely try to make it worth everyone's time by challenging the Kindergarteners just enough (while we have the extra help) and I will definitely be asking my husband to make the mentors some awesome food at the restaurant for lunch one week.
Finally, we glued the black paper on a large white paper. NEXT, painting in the white spots in a project I call MIXED UP MONDRIAN. Check back here for more details next week.
2 comments:
I suppose I've no made it a secret that I do not like teaching kindergarten - actually those little buggers terrify me (almost as much as rodents). But it's reading posts like this one that make me realize what a lousy job I really am doing at teaching kindergarten. My K lessons are scattered and disjointed and I don't think I ever really "teach" them so much as I try to have them "do" stuff.
This year's kindergarten is really small, so it's a good opportunity for me to do better I suppose. (Last year there were 3 kindergarten classes, with about 15 kids each, and this year there are only two K classes, one with 13 kids, and the other... well, 3 families moved the first day of school and now there are only 9 kids in the 2nd class(which is why I was able to agree to teach the 2 classes all at once last week). This drop in enrollment is scary for our staff, because there will be no way to preserve jobs next year - I mean, unless new families come back, there will only need to be one 1st grade class, when there's never been less than three.
Anyhow, thanks for making me think about re-thinking what I do with my kinder-kids. (Think about re-thinking? Does that sound as incoherent as I think it does?) Methinks I think too much...
This seems like a cool idea. I should have done something like this with my Kinders...
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