Thursday, April 16, 2009

Teaching Moments

We did our "Color Areas" activity today. I'm finding that doing focused, specific activities is proving to be a little more challenging to get started. After putzing around a bit, needing some guidance from Mom, and a lot of "watch me do it...now YOU do it," Mcclellan finally catches on and gets interested. We collected yellow and orange materials from around the house today. These included a yellow banana peel that he spied on the counter in the kitchen...
Then, in the middle of hunting for an orange something, he has been dragging a costume-jewelry necklace of Grandma W's when I heard, "Ker-chattle!" The string had broken and black and grey squares were scattered about. We paused our orange hunt and picked up every last bead. There were 48 in all...

The brilliant new idea had struck me by then, but not wanting to deter from our regularly scheduled programming, we finished up our Color Areas. Then, "Mcclellan," I said, "We are going to sort." After the same putzing about, he was well into sorting black squares onto one plate, grey on another.
"I'm sorting, Mama!" he called. And he got 24 grey squares on one plate. 24 black on the other! This teaching moment brought to you by an accident and a broken something turned into a beautiful, purposeful work activity!
Again, this was something that just can't be planned! I'm getting better, really I am!