This past Thursday night was our quarterly "
Learning Showcase," an evening event for families to see what all the classes have been working on over the past many weeks. Our school-wide focus for this night was "Imagination," with each classroom displaying creativity and art in learning. In the Big Cats' preschool classroom, it was all about heroes - as you may have guessed!
We displayed their hero figurines inside the dioramas, with their special handwritten signs. Alongside each of these, we had a printout of the "
hero story" - what the child shared about their hero.
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| One of the "hero" displays at Learning Showcase |
I am always excited by seeing the children with their families, showing off their special work. It was a very special evening! My colleague Brandi, who works with elementary students, dropped by for what she described as her "
preschool fix" - "
I've got to read their stories, Maureen!" She knows I always have stories to share. It is my absolute favorite thing to do with preschoolers, to catch their words, to catch their thinking.
Often, as you know, I say "
How does your story begin?" and wait for their words to flow. Laura (Teaching Resident) and I decided to be a little more "
academic" and precise with these stories, with the goal of showing the real learning that can happen through a powerful "
play" topic such as heroes. Thus, we asked the children to write the name of their hero. We built on their science learning about animals and asked questions about their heroes ability to protect, defend, move. We included powerful social-emotional questions that help build the community - kindness, helping the world. We decided to emphasize "math sets" of five - getting the children to work on their number sense in a meaningful way. We stretched them cognitively, asking a few questions that were inter-connected, so that their story had more of a sequence. We developed a special "questionnaire" for the child to answer, to be certain that we were getting a complete picture of each hero and to stretch each child to really think about their hero. Let me share this questionnaire with you -
- What is your superhero's name?
- What does your superhero do to protect others?
- What does she do to keep herself safe?
- How does your superhero move?
- How does your superhero show kindness?
- What magic superpowers does your superhero have?
- What are the five foods your superhero eats to be healthy and strong?
- What are five words to describe your superhero?
- What are five ways that your superhero will make the world a better place?
Over the past couple of weeks, Laura worked one-on-one with each preschooler to complete this questionnaire, which, I believe, gave each young author that very special and important feeling of their work being valued, of being listened to and respected. The children were so delighted with these chats, sharing the most fabulous imaginative stories with us.
[Honestly, it was very difficult for me to "give" Laura the ownership and responsibility of receiving these stories from the children. However, my bigger goal (and hope) is for Laura to teach this way throughout her career - to truly be present and listening to children - and I knew it was important for her to "own" this part of our effort. As I expected - she was hooked, absolutely stunned, thrilled, elated by the children's words. I loved watching her fall in love with this teaching technique.]
My colleague Brandi suggests that we create a book of these children's stories, because they make such "feel good" reading. With that happy thought in mind, I'll share their answers to the last question with you here. I hope you enjoy these as much as I do!
What are five ways that your superhero will make the world a better place?
Ebony
She is going to fight the bad guys and then
they’re gonna go away. The children is gonna say “you saved the world!”
She is going to be perfect again.
She will run up the ladder and save the
cat. And then she goes down the ladder.
She saves her friends.
She will get it perfect. And she will have
superpower for the whole wide world.
Sarah Lydia
Make people see whatever they want.
Let people sit where they want to.
Bring people to the hospital.
Bring lovies.
Bring people to places where they need to
go.
Sayid
Go and get all of the bad guys out of the
town. Out of the place.
Waters bad guys.
Gets all of the not good swimmers out of
the place.
Gets all of the good swimmers into the
place.
He gives good things to people.
Anya
She goes, “abra cadabra alla cazoo make that world disappear ca tooom!”
She has an animal that shoots out fires and
puts out fires.
She has a magic power so she can do
whatever she needs to do. If she has to get somewhere very fast and she can’t
fly, she will go, “abra cadabra” and
she will be there.
She has a fire truck and a monster truck
and a construction truck and an ambulance to drive everywhere
She has something that can help her
remember everything. She has a cape cat that tells her what has been done.
Reia
She has an ambulance, a fire truck, a
police car, and a car.
She can take care of everything.
She takes care of the earth.
She sometimes forgot to put her clothes in
her dirty basket, but she puts them when she comes home.
She helps people.
Jack
By defending everyone from bad guys.
Make there be more life and make there be
no more mean stuff.
He can defend with all his power and defeat
the bad guys and smash the enemies.
He invents things to protect people from
the giant disasters.
He can flash a message that there’s a bad
guy coming to the whole city and to the whole world so every person knows
there’s a bad guy so he can go stop him.
Ellington
Build a house.
Build a building.
Make a bridge.
Make a car and a truck.
Help people.
Harper
She flies.
She looks into the cave and hides if any
bad guys are in there.
She helps the earth.
She helps the friends.
She helps the world.
Arlando
By saving the earth if there’s an alien
attack.
He can help kids do things that the kids
can’t do.
He can also fly.
He can also draw.
He is good at getting food for animals.
Ferdie
He throws the balls and knocks everything
down.
He saves people from fires.
He helps build roadbus.
Plays eats and drinks.
Take care of his family.
Emma
Help animals.
Helps people when they are sick.
Go to bed.
Go outside.
Make things like buildings and superheroes.
Nolan
Save people.
Go home so his mom will see him.
Save his friends.
Save some animals.
He goes home and saves somebody.
Saadiq
Save the world.
She gives food to animals.
She hugs her friends.
She cooks eggs for her family.
She gives hugs to take care of her
community.
Soren
Build a house.
Make a big wall.
Build like a fortress around him.
He can make something invisible so he can
build a house.
He can make his house invisible. If he doesn’t like it, he can make
another house.
Charlie
Help people get their houses fixed.
He tries to help people get their cars
ready to go because the people have a hard time getting it ready to go.
He helps fire rescue man.
He makes everybody happy.
Help everybody walk.
Sophie
She helps her family with her baby sister
She helps her friends if they get in
trouble
She uses her magic to make her community feel
better
She gives animals food and helps them if
they get in trouble
She waters the flowers and the plants.
Lukas
He pushes a button to make him tall and
then he sees the bad guy and he fliiiies over him, and jumps him in jail.
Vacuum up all the bad guys.
He uses sharp nails or his knife to cut the
stuff open that stuff needs to be opened.
He has lightning eyes to see what’s in
trouble and then he knows what to do and he can zap it with a lightning bolt!
He saves everybody from the bad guys.
Jamie
Help the community by saving the world.
He helps and protects animals.
He makes a cave.
He saves the world by hiding bad guys and
ghosts.
He goes back home and sleeps.
Dillon
Play.
Eat a plate with strawberries on it.
Aaaaaand build a house where you go
anywhere in the house and fly everywhere in the house and then do some work,
and then do some training exercise, and then play, and then wash your hands,
and go eat and then fly out and then the phone calls them, and then play and
laugh and that’s the end. Bye!
Aaaaaand do some work and play with toys
and do some Legos in the house.
Aaaaand play on top of the Lego pieces and
fly off and that’s the end. The End!
Zoe
She can help her neighborhood and friends.
She can protect animals and stuff from
poachers and bad guys and a fire, I guess.
Aaaand she can save people.
And she has a really big cape.
And she has a pink and purple and blue suit
‘cause those are her favorite colors. And she can save people. And that’s all I
know.
Ben
He could save everybody. Everybody is still
in trouble. He will save them from more trouble.
He could do anything! He could climb up a ladder
to climb to get the people off the roof. The people are trapped on the roof.
So, he could climb a ladder to grab them.
His family is going to help him. He can’t
do it alone. He needs help doing the superhero power.
He helps animals get away from the fire.
He can check on his computer if he is
hungry. The computer don’t work. [So,
then what?] It still doesn’t work. [How
does he solve this?] ‘Cause he saves things.
Bella
He puts the bad guys in a cave and tries to
put them and then he puts them covered up with paper and dirt and a lot of
paper and a lot of rocks, and boots, and pictures, and pencils, and chairs.
With loooots of stuff.
Well, he gots some special buttons and
these are the buttons that he presses. They go, “beep beep beep beep beep!” If he presses this button, it is an
alarm. But it doesn’t hurt his ears. It hurts the bad guy’s ears. And he will
run away.
He just makes a party and he tries do
something nice for his family, he makes a cake for his Mommy and Papi and they
have a nice birthday party.
He tries to do something nice with his
friends- share with his toys, draw with them, build, and try to paint, and have
lots of fun at centers, and make an airplane, and try to pick the bad guys.
He feeds the animals, give them a little
bit of grass, and then the animals are sick, he puts the animals in bed.
