Follow Their Lead!

¡Buenas tardes, y bienvenidos a las conferencias!

I have to say, I am pretty proud of my accomplishments today: successful conferences, homework for my Educational Research course, lesson planning, and making biscuits!

Knock wood, but I think I've got a bastante padre lesson in science on Monday planned for my administrative observation. Our inaugural classroom use of our new toaster oven will be for baking biscuits with visual recipes. Of course, there will be compare/contrast science journaling of the masa and the bizcochos, ingredient reading, and math measurement!

I've got a few minutes before my last conference comes, and then it's off to our Dual Language PLC, so I thought to write up a post about following children's leads. This is a key concept in Early Childhood circles - in its fuller form it's known as emergent curriculum - but it's often neglected in elementary pedagogy (at least as far as I've witnessed) due to the chock-full schedules and standardized assessment. Ironically, the very thing that typically makes research so simple - technology - is the also the delimiting factor. But even if you can't plan a whole unit around the whims and whimsies of your kids, small, impromptu investigations are absolutely possible (and necessary).

Here are three from the last few days: 

1. Sledding.
I have a new student. He just moved from El Salvador; his first days in this country have been snowy and relentlessly cold. Of course, his first day in my class he was crying and crying and crying. He wanted his mom. Claro que quería estar con su mamá. When we went out for morning recess, he shivered and sniffled, totally miserable in his puff coat and adorable penguin hat. My words comforted him only a small measure.

Then, my kids discovered that the snow on the small playground hill was packed down and slick with ice. It was approximately 45 seconds before they were all tobogganing down on bellies and backs and bums, shrieking and having a grand old time. My new student watched, then got close. Then he smiled. Then he rolled down the hill with them. When they asked if they could have a few more minutes outside, my answer was an enthusiastic "¡Sí!"

2. "¡Igual que Bella!"
Later that same day, it was storytime. The past two days we had read Cross-Country Cat. It's about a Siamese cat, Henry, who realizes to find his family he must travel by... that's right. Cross-country skiing. It's totally winning (and a childhood favorite of mine). So, to extend on a theme but also practice with informational texts, we read a (super-abridged) article that I adapted from the New York Times. It tells the story of Holly, the amazing kitty who traveled more than 200 miles to reunite with her humans.

 

 We read it, with kids tracking the text. It was the first time I had tried an article of that size, and was pleasantly surprised with how kids used the pronouns and the number to find their place when they would go too quickly or slowly. 

When they finished, a student piped up: "¡Igual que Bella!" she said. I thought I had misheard her. Surely she meant Henry? But others nodded, their hands shooting into the air. "Yeah, Bella!"

Now, I could've easily rerouted the conversation to comparing Holly and Henry. Instead, I followed their lead. In a minute I was on the computer connected to the SmartBoard, loading the preview for A Dog's Way Home. 

 

 

  Well, look at that.
Kids, animated by their text-to-experience connections, chimed in, and soon we were comparing Henry, Holly, and Bella. There was even a fervent sidebar that discussed whether A Dog's Way Home was fiction like Cross-Country Cat or non-fiction like "Holly Vuelve a Casa" (they decided that it was almost non-fiction, but since Bella talked it was fiction).


3. Reading music.
Then, just yesterday, kids were interested in the weird markings next to "Music class" on our daily schedule (musical notations).  I explained that they were music notes, and that you could read them just as you read in English or Spanish. I sang the little phrase on the daily schedule. They were perplexed. We had to push on at that moment, but I explained I'd do a mini-lesson on reading music later during play for those who were interested.
And that we did. They picked the song, I tracked the music, and it wasn't long until they had popped in the CD and grabbed percussion instruments.

I know we all follow our students' lead; I know too we sometimes feel like we have curtail their wild, anarchic curiosity in favor of scope and sequence. But, for your sake and for theirs, give yourself permission to explore with them. Who knows where it may lead you? ...It may lead me to go see a cheesy kid's movie about a dog. After all, as a student pointed out, I could probably ask my mamá or papá to take me.  ;)