On day two, we pulled our blueprints and began to discuss what materials could we use to make our models. During the discussion the students said things like plastic, bricks, or even a bucket, wonderful materials however they might be a little difficult to find in our classroom so I posed the question what materials that we have inside our classroom right now could help us to build our models? The students were pretty quick to realize we had quite a few materials such as blocks and snap-cubes. I allowed for the students to choose the materials they wanted to use for building their containers, in my own head I thought they would all choose the pattern blocks since we had focused on using shapes in our models, nothing could have prepared me for what my Kindergartners actually chose for building materials. Building blocks, large building blocks. My head my screaming why are you choosing building blocks? You didn't even put squares on your blueprint! My face must have shown through because my collaborating teacher stepped in to help make the connection that your model should look like your blueprint. She then helped guide them to the realization of what material made the most sense for building our models.
After discussing with Wendy and good versus bad lessons, she reminded me that each time we teach, we learn and that is more important than placing value on a lesson by deeming it good or bad.
And that's all for this week,
Ms. Brookes