My class this year is amazing! I have been blessed with 18 kiddos & I am hoping that the number stays that low this year (fingers crossed)! I had 31 kinders last year, and wow, what a challenge that was having that many 5 year olds in one classroom! Anywho, I was sharing a story about one of my kiddos with my husband yesterday, and he encouraged me to share it on my blog I launched in June when I was off-track. So here I am, sharing, thanks to my wonderful husband!
I have an adorable student named Sara. She is smart, outgoing, and knows majority of the Kindergarten standards already. With that being said, it has pushed me to challenge Sara by having her create her own narratives, pushing her to higher expectations, and having her be a peer teacher to my other kiddos in my class that need some extra help & support. It is working out beautifully. Ok, back to my story about what happened in class yesterday...during the month of August, we are studying bears, bears, and more bears! So yesterday, I used Discovery Education to show my class a video version of Goldilocks and the Three Bears. I asked them to pay attention to what happens in the beginning of the story, the middle of the story, and the end of the story. They thoroughly enjoyed it and even pointed out the similarities and differences from the book we read a week ago to the movie. Once we discussed the beginning, middle, and end, I modeled an activity they would be doing on their own at their seat (a flip book that had beginning, middle, and end written on it). I modeled that they are to illustrate what happened at the beginning, middle, and end of the story. We have a class joke that I, Mrs. Garcia, always color rosy cheeks on the characters I draw (people & animals, hence the joke). So as usual, I colored rosy cheeks on Goldilocks, grandma, and the bears, which was followed by many giggles. After modeling, I then dismissed my students to their seats to create their own illustrations. As my students were working, I was assessing students on name writing at my guided reading table (grades are due in a couple of weeks...yikes!). Sara finished and came over to my table for me to check her book. I noticed that her left cheek below her eye, had a long red mark on it going down to her mouth. It looked like a bad scratch. I asked her what happened because it wasn't there when she arrived at school. She said another student did it with a red crayon. But immediately, he denied it and logically stated, that she sits too far away from him & couldn't even reach her...made sense to me. I could tell by the look on Sarah's face, that she seemed a little embarrassed. I then noticed when she turned that the red line was also on her right cheek below her eye going to her mouth. All of a sudden it dawned on me! The aha moment came! I asked Sarah if she did it to herself with a red crayon...she confessed and she said she did it because she wanted to give herself rosy cheeks! I immediately started to laugh and so did she. It was so cute and I was more surprised than anything. I told her to go wash her face in the bathroom & that I would have to let her mom know because the mark was still there even after she washed her face. I told mom after school and mom laughed as well...the lesson of this story: I better be careful what details I decided to add to my characters when I am drawing for my kiddos :)
With Love,
