Seat of my pants

When you are learning to be a teacher, they tell you that the best lessons are thought out thoroughly. You needed to decide what skills you were going go focus upon, how it integrates into your students prior knowledge and how to increase upon that knowledge base. Is this a lesson that introduces a new skill, practices a known skill or remediation for a skill that many are struggling with. The best lessons have modifications up for more advanced students and remediation for struggling students.

Are you bored yet? I sure was! As a kindergarten teacher, I found that my best lessons were taught "off the seat of my pants". They were lessons that I thought about on my drive to work. Or while setting up a totally different lesson. They were ones that came out of something a child mentioned that day or the day before.

When I taught kindergarten, I always taught monthly themes and utilized the themes to teach all the core learning needed, while teaching higher level concepts. Don't get me wrong I had a set curriculum that had to be taught. There were skills that ever child had to master. It's the how you get there that I tweaked each year.

With my sons' new schedule we now have project time once a day. This week we worked on using air through straws. (I'll share the projects with pictures on Friday) I allowed them to push this activity where they wanted it to go, while still having in mind some simple facts I wanted them to learn.

Often parents say to me "but you're a teacher you know what to do to help them learn." You are their parent, you know what they WANT to learn. When they get to school they will have enough activities that are not geared specifically towards what they like, why not focus on their likes at home and go from there. Make things fun. See where they go with the activity. Nothing says that every activity has to be a lesson and/or that it has to go according to plan. Some of the best lessons learned happen by mistake.

--Do you do projects with your children? Why not try a simple project together today? You might be surprised how much fun you have together.