Curriculum Work
Around Valentine's Day, I found a cute little book called "I Like You", by Sandol Stoddard, with really cute little illustrations in it. I decided a good plan would be to read it to the kids, and then have them do a writing exercise starting with the phrase "I like you". I called them into a circle, and as they got closer to each other stuff started: "You cut me, you're to close", etc. I said, 'come on guys, aren't we all friends?" I got a resounding "NO" back...so I said, well, we all have to live with each other, so...By the time I was a few pages into the story they were enraptured, and laughing at all the silly things it says. "When I'm a goofus on the roofus, (you are too?)". When I was finished reading, I asked them whether they wanted to write about someone at home, or someone in class. They all began chanting "In class, in class..." So, I'd made little pieces of paper with each of their names on them, and they pulled them out from my hands. One girl got a boy she doesn't like that much, and she so quietly asked me, that I let her put it back and choose again. She chose again, and got the same boy. I told her it must be meant to be. So I handed out fuschia paper, they got out their coloured pencils, and on the board I let them help me spell out "I like you because". Then I helped them think of things they could write, even if they didn't really know what to write. If they didn't like their person that much, they could write 'I like you because you wear cool shirts', or 'you sit far away from me', etc. The girl wrote: "I like you because my mom knows your mom." Other kids made extra ones for their friends, and nobody made one for one of the boys, so I did (no names were signed on these). I wrote : "I like you because you have cool hair."
It was cool because Valentine's Day was only a few days away. But it was crazy, too, because we only had 30 minutes to do all of the above...I really think that crazy short bursts of time like that make 6 year olds go nuts...I've been there more than once when one kid started to just meltdown because they couldn't finish their project. They like to get into things, and sometimes they like to finish what they begin. Anyway, they are just the cutest people I know.
