A geography day

W and C started it by working on the world map today. I think W just really wanted to use the clay, but they also had fun putting the puzzle pieces in the frame. While they were doing that S took out the new little flag book I had made for them and was heading to the library to look at it when M caught her.

"I wanted to read that!"

"Ok," said S, who's always up for some socializing. So together they got out the reading mat and crowed around, flipping the pages to look at the different flags.

"That's South America," S said matter of factly as they flipped to one page. Now I know "South America' doesn't have a flag but hey, at least she was using geography terms! Then S got in trouble with the next page.

"What's that one?" M asked.

"I don't know." S replied after a short pause, quickly flipping away from it.

"How about this one?" M asked again. S just looked at it for a minute, struggling to figure out what to say. Finally she came up with,

"You have to read it silly!" and turned the page again and stated "That's South America." I couldn't help but giggle a bit as she kept trying to convince herself that she knew the names of those flags. After a few pages she did come and ask me to read a few of the names, but S was definitely determined to know them by herself. I have a feeling that girl's going to learn to read by sheer determination some day when she gets it into her head.

Afterwards C recruited M to do fetching with him using the flags. She happily pointed out the pictures in the book and sent him to bring them over from the stand. Unfortunately there were so many flags there that it was hard to pick out specific ones so I helped them spread all the flags out on one mat and work at a second with the ones they had already found. They were so in to their little game that when we noticed that some flags in the book were not out they asked me to check in the closet for them.

Soon they had ALL the flags for North and South America out on the mat or in the stand. They were bound and determined to find all the matches. M was having a great time directing C, who couldn't have been more pleased than when he brought back a matching flag. They made it through nearly all the flags before they finally got tired and went on to new work. I checked it later and that's about 35 flags....They went back and forth nearly 30 times matching the flags and pictures. Without any prompting or real help.

Now that's a great example of the kind of repetition we want happening in the classroom!