Jump Frog Jump

Sometimes when I pull things out of my box for the week there are remnants of the way I used to teach. This week there was this frog craft. As I placed it to the side Kilee said ” What is that Debbie ? Can I do it ?” Well…. ( squirm… think….. squirm… ) YES ! Yes, you can. Some kiddos are drawn to the more quiet fine motor project type activities . Boston and Kilee are two of those. If you give Boston paper and scissors he will cut for an hour. Ideally, I would give them paper and they could decide what they want to make but there is some value in them having these lines to cut on to make a frog. This is great fine motor practice. You know what makes this teacher directed craft more appropriate ? They asked ME could they do it . I didn’t tell them how to make it , I just handed them the tools . I didn’t force them to complete a task they were not ready for. They were quite proud of their frog when they finished it. Being in a child led emergent curriculum based program is sometimes not easy for a teacher that is a planner. Today I made it a point to sit on the floor and talk to the kids . I went to the blue sand that is a pretend small pond the kids can write their names in. Name writing was not on the agenda. One time I went to that spot and child was hiding all the small animals ” Lets cover them up.” I am game. Yes, lets do. Look , my blue one is hiding he is camouflaged in the blue sand . Another time I made my way there a little girl was making a volcano. We talked about what volcanos do and where we might find one. I pulled up a you tube video and we watched a volcano erupt. After a while I asked the little girl if she thought she would want to paint one at the easel. SURE ! She said. We talked about what colors she would need . We didn’t have gray , how could we make gray ? It didnt have anything to do with a pond and surprisingly I was ok with that .