SOLSC #13: What about readiness?

I am participating in the
March 2018 Slice of Life Story Challenge (SOLSC).
All participants are writing about one moment, one part of their day, every day for thirty-one days.

A big thank you to Two Writing Teachers for providing this unique opportunity

for teacher-writers to share and reflect.

I had another one of those strange collaborative conversations today, where I could feel the "pushing" of children. The meeting included a cross-section of teachers and administrators, to discuss an issue:

Our school has a significant increase in students requiring occupational therapy for writing in first grade.

The question was asked -

What can we do in kindergarten, pre-K4, and pre-K3 that would decrease the referrals?

Readiness. 

Ugh.

This is such a minefield of a word for me, as a preschool teacher.

I was told that there is a very big gap between what is expected in first grade and our developmentally appropriate practice in early childhood.

I was told that after kindergarten, 60% of a student's day is spent writing.

Wow.

I wonder -

how do we know that first grade expectations are reasonable?

why is it that the early childhood curricula should change? should be modified to meet this need?

how do we know this is the right thing to do?

Please don't get me wrong - there are a lot of developmentally appropriate ways to encourage pre-literacy...ways to build fine motor muscles, ways to encourage letter recognition, ways to nurture both reading and writing. There are great ways to do all of this in the midst of a play-based, exploratory curriculum. I am game to think this through, to consider ways to enhance our curriculum.

I simply wonder,

how is it that the increased need for occupational therapy reflects on the early childhood years?

shouldn't we be questioning what is being expected of our elementary students?

I saw this declaration on a sign advertising a local private preschool, 

"Where childhood is cherished, children flourish."

Many days, public school seems far removed from this dreamy description.

sol17-7 What if we relived the story with blocks?

I am participating in the
Slice of Life Story Challenge (SOLSC).
All participants are writing about one moment, one part of their day, every day of March 2017. 

A big thank you to Two Writing Teachers for providing this unique opportunity

for teacher-writers to share and reflect.

I read the sweet book The Little House by Virginia Lee Burton and the block center became transformed...preschoolers made the story come alive.

Right after we read the book, one student was building with blocks and she built a small house. 

I said, "Oh, is that The Little House? The one in the story we just read?" She said "Yes! And now we need a city!" Several children started pitching in, building around the little house.

The first blocks were pretty intentional, with the goal being high buildings around the house and a bridge on top of the house.

More children became interested and the creating went in many different directions - making a zoo, a metro train, "my" house, a railroad track, a playground, more tall buildings...

Children added more and more details, more and more ideas, more and more blocks. 

Everyone worked together. No one took apart another's work, they simply scavenged for additional blocks and created something new for the city. The Little House became forgotten. The new goals were as varied as the children building - what if we built a city around us? Let's fit inside our city! What if we built a super tall house? The tallest house in the world? What if this city was only for animals, no people? Let's make animal families. What if we used all the little blocks, too? What if?

I have always loved this classic story. My students do, too.

SOLSC 2015 #17: How do we feel about Mr. Plumbean's house?

Each day during March, I am participating in the Two Writing Teachers Slice of Life Story Challenge (SOLSC). All participants are writing about one moment, one part of their day, every day for thirty-one days. My slices will be primarily about teaching preschoolers. Check out the Two Writing Teachers  website for lots more reflections on teaching. Thanks especially to Stacey, Tara, Anna, Beth, Dana, and Betsy for hosting this writing challenge. 

*******

Today, we revisited the story The Big Orange Splot by Daniel Manus Pinkwater, which is our school-wide text this trimester. At our Learning Showcase later this week, students from every class in the school will share special work that relates to this book. In my class, the preschool Big Cats, this book has been on our bookshelf the whole school year...we have probably read this book half a dozen times, with children perusing it on their own regularly. It has long been a favorite of mine. 

I hope you are familiar with the story - after a bird drops a bucket of orange paint on his house, Mr. Plumbean, the main character, paints his home in a new and wild way, incorporating the big orange splot, and reflecting his dreams. 

At first, his neighbors are less than impressed with his choice to paint his house differently, but, slowly, one by one, the neighbors meet and talk with him, only to decide to paint their own houses differently. The entire street is transformed with each house reflecting individual dreams. 

I think it is a great story for introducing preschoolers to our differences, how unique we each are, how we each have our own hopes and dreams. 

I challenged the children to write a letter to Mr. Plumbean, asking them what they might say to him if they saw him paint his house in this way. I gave them each a blank letter to complete, to give them some writing practice, and I took dictation. Remind you, I've read this book many times this school year, so I knew I was just "preaching to the choir," at this point. 

"If you lived next door to Mr. Plumbean, what would you say?"

I knew they would each share what they loved about Mr. Plumbean's house.

I was totally wrong. 

One after the other, they demanded that Mr. Plumbean put his house back to the way it looked originally:

Dear Mr. Plumbean, 

I don’t like your house. I’m going to just put your house in jail. (James) 

I’m going to take that house away from you. (Ella) 

Get your house back the way it was! I like the house. (Wesley)  

Put your house somewhere else. I do like about it, I do like the crocodile. (Simona)  

Why you turn your house to a jungle?  Get your house back to where it was. (Dmitry) 

You should make your house back to normal, back to your neighbor’s house. But, I don’t like the jungle house. I like the other houses that look the same as the others. (Katherine) 

Get down your house! I do like the crocodile but I don’t like the lion. (Henry) 

Change your house! Or else I will take your pictures and put them in my house! The picture of us. (Naima)   

Turn back your house! I don’t like the lion and I don’t like anything on this house. (Nicky)  

Put your house back to your house! You painted it wrong. I would paint it back to his house. (Julian) 

Get the alligator and get it out of the way! (Jackson) 

I don’t like it. It has a lion. I don’t like that you painted a lion. Paint a different house! (Ellis) 

Change your house or I’m going to put it in jail. Because it is not the same as theirs. (Paxton) 

Keep your house where you were. Make it the way you were. Change your house! (Avery)

What was going on here? Mind you, I worked with the children one-on-one as they wrote their letters, showing them the page of the book where Mr. Plumbean's new house is on full display, and encouraging them to react to the picture. They were not simply imitating one another. 

Their adamance, their opposition, their certainty left me shaking my head in wonder -

Is this pre-literacy, preschoolers remembering how all the neighbors were at first very opposed to Mr. Plumbean's new house? Were my students just recalling/echoing the next part of the story?

or

Is this developmental, preschoolers preferring the same routine, the same old same old, the predictable?

or

Is this developmental, preschoolers wanting to be in charge, have the power, be the boss?

or

Something else?

Truly, I don't know. But they sure caught me off guard! I know the families are going to enjoy seeing these letters in print at the Learning Showcase.