Inspiration

In the classroom we often talk about the children being 'inspired' by one another. Or if they're doing something inappropriate we call it "monkey see, monkey do" (though not in front of them!). But they really like when we use inspired, and why shouldn't we try and increase their vocabulary?

Anyways, usually this is a great situation. One child sees another do an activity and wants to try it for themselves. Or they see someone else take a different approach to the materials (like laying the pink tower sideways, instead of building it straight up) and then want to see if they can do the same thing. Obviously this also means we want to put a stop to anything that might get out of hand. Like with the magnet work, we allow the children to bring one item at a time over to their table to try out, but as soon as we see someone wandering around with the magnet, waving it around, they are asked to put that work away.

Today I was re-directing D by doing some fetching with classified cards. Classified cards are pretty much what they sound like, a set of cards with a common theme (vegetables, tools, kitchen objects, etc.) that help build vocabulary. In our room we have two identical sets of the cards, one set that is blank and one that has the words printed on it. The child can either match the pictures on their own, or with a friend, or they can have a teacher give them the name of the object and then check the card they bring back against the labeled picture.

As I helped D get set up O, the newest child in our classroom, showed a lot of interest so I asked if he wanted to do some as well. While he was setting up, a third child, F, also asked to fetch some cards. I long ago realized that 3 children in the max I can handle with this activity and it's still really busy. Asking each child to get a certain card, helping them check the one they bring back, and remember which cards go with who!

They thought it was great though. And in fact their eagerness inspired a fourth child, A, to ask if he could do some too! It was so great, all these children were busy and engaged, focused on what they were doing as they went back and forth between me and their pile of cards. Ok, so D kept getting distracted, but he did eventually bring me all his cards!