The kindergarten classroom Friday afternoon appeared chaotic and loud. If you had passed by you might have wondered how any learning could occur in all the mayhem.
In actuality, it was a lesson in ingenuity and cooperation. The children were given two long cardboard boxes. They agreed to make them into a long tunnel. Then they had to experiment on ways to keep them from falling
over. Several ideas were tried: pillows on the outside and inside, stools on the outside and inside. After the boxes were connected together and standing, children tried crawling through. Then there was a suggestion to decorate the tunnels. Everyone got very excited by this proposal.
After much amusement, enthusiasm, and creativity, the boxes were put away and the children analyzed the experience. I asked them what they thought worked well and what didn't work. Here are some of their comments:
-It got crowded inside the box.
-It was fun.
-I liked decorating it.
-People wouldn't always move when someone wanted to get through.
-Sometimes it was too loud.
-We never got to try it because we spent all the time decorating it.
-We did get to crawl through.
-We all worked together.
-It was good when we were drawing on the outside but it was crowded when we were inside.
-Sometimes someone coloring on the top would press down and bump the people inside.
-I think it would have been better if we took turns.
-Yeah, I think 1/2 the children should have done it at a time, then it wouldn't be so crowded.
I was impressed with this groups ability to critically look at the experience. They had many very insightful comments.
1 comment:
Great post, Elaine.
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