Back to the Basics

I took a little trip back in time this evening to listen to the wisdom of Bev Bos, an expert in early learning. The videos that I watched and articles I read were from the late 80's/early 90's, but the words still rang so true for me (the glasses and hairstyles are a different story!). When I look at back at our last week, her words about 'basic skills' stand out most. She argued that reading, writing and arithmetic are not the basic skills, rather they are quite complex skills to wrap our heads around. The true basic skills are wonder, discovery and experience, and I feel as though this past week has been a wonderful mix of the three! Has our learning always gone in the direction I predicted? Nope! Has it been messy and really wet? You bet. But if you were to ask me if curiosity and creativity was encouraged and supported, I would also answer yes. I learn so much every day from this group, and I am now really enjoying having the students as teachers each day. In fact, I am enjoying it so much that I have completely forgotten to take pictures most days!

puddling painting for some,

puddle jumping for others!

Inspired by Miss Lizzy to create our own musical instruments! Now that we have a painted design, we can move on to building.

Students have now signed up to teach for a day. This includes all activity ideas, planning and prep. During a directed drawing activity this week, there was this magical moment when I realized I wasn't really needed.

Bryden led us on a special trip to his grandpa's scrapyard today. Everyone was given a magnet to explore with and keep, and we watched the machines do some serious crushing!

When we returned to the classroom, we used the magnets to investigate magnetism using coins and hardware.

I truly believe that working to create a culture of curious, engaged, caring children builds the foundation for academic skill development. I marvel at the choices students make to independently create and explore with numbers and letters, and the connections they make with others along the way.