Teacher/Parent: Communication skills are of top importance not only when it comes to education, but everywhere. Take one job that does not require communication. It doesn’t exist. And many find communication uncomfortable so they shy away from it.
My form of educating children was to frame most things in a very pleasant, and sometimes silly manner. The kids would be on board instantly and I had a captive audience who were thrilled to be participators.
The first example is: “The Enchanted Story.” I gave out packets of colored paper. I asked everyone to tear them up as much as they wanted to. Of course, this garnered much joy and complete communicative reaction among all of my kids. They had a ball! OH! And then we had to clean up everything off the floor and that also garnered laughter. And of course, I participated at my desk with tearing up the colored papers and with trying to move my handfuls around until I found a picture for me! “The Enchanted Story” became my creation while the kids all worked on theirs! They just loved this, and everyone individually created wonderful stories.
I then gave them instructions to pick two handfuls of torn colored papers and only put them on their desks. Then I instructed them to move them around any way that they wished until the papers began to form a “picture.” And, Wow! We had twenty-five really wonderful pictures on each desk!
And with this way of doing things, my kids reacted with the fact that they were never really able to write a story, and my retort was: “See? You always had this in you but never had this type of experience to bring it out!”
“Once Upon a Munchkin”….. With this project we had already become “brothers and sisters” to the kindergarten classes. So, I approached my class to ask then if instead of reading actual books to the little ones, we would create our own and read them to the kids and then give them to each of the kindergartners. They were psyched! And as you can see, we used ordinary paper, no frills. Some kids decided that because they would look at magazines and cut pictures out and paste them in their books! This was a novel idea that came from the creative process that they were now used to. We even created, out of drinking straws, unusual “animals” to use in our stories!
“The Eggmobile, brought to you by “Buck-Buck International!”
This was a laughter project! The instructions were that the kids should create “Wacky Wierdo’s” and then embellish upon them with only one sentence. First, I gave them brainstorming moments together. In my classes the word, “copying,” was no longer used as we had learned that every invention comes from a team of ideas where many people are directly involved. And that in the corporate world teams get big-time pay for their inventions!
The one-page creations were hysterical and very clever!
Then: “You are One Inch Tall!” I had the kids quickly fall to the floor with pencil and paper in hand, to then look up at everything and record how their new perspective at what they were seeing was different. I told them that they were very little because I had thrown invisible “little dust” on them but that they only had fifteen minutes because then they would grow back again to original size. Of course, I was on the floor with them doing the same thing! Then…..WOOOOSSSHHHH! They were big again. This time the assignment was to create a book that was one inch big! More laughter. But again, their creations, within their teams were amazing! And as an outgrowth of this project. My class decided that they wanted to do “fruit books!” I cracked up. So, “Apple and Wilma Worm” was my creation from that project!
“Have I Got Ideas for YOU!” This was a poster that I created over the door of my classroom. We advertised that we would share all of our ideas with other classes. And we did! Many of my colleagues were so happy with all of that!
Lesson A “Rain” (Rob, this goes with the Rain poster) It was pouring out! Even the sound of the rain was deafening. I walked over to the window with my magnifying glass and focused on one raindrop that was making its way down the window pane. The kaleidoscope of colors was magnificent. I turned to my kids and said,” Oh, my gosh! Such beautiful colors in that raindrop!” They thought I was nuts! So, I went to my storage closet and got out many small magnifying glasses and invited the kids to do what I did. WOW! They were amazed! And the posters about rain were an outgrowth of that!
“Mysterious Something” (Ron, you already have that and that should be linked to: “The Enchanted Story.”
“Wackey Wierdos” colorful posters….
After finishing a math project involving graph paper….measurement….perspective, etc, the kids decided to explore “math” posters. This is mine, and I have several others that I also designed. I did not keep the designs that the kids produced because they all wanted to hang theirs up in their rooms at home!
As you can see, all of my classes became really wonderful with communication skills. And that spilled into every area of the curriculum where I created year-long project designs plugging the required curriculum into the designs.
So that you should all know, I taught from grades 4-12 and graduate school as well. And I always kept in mind that I wanted to “INSPIRE NOT TIRE!” And I have provided many of my year-long project design packets for you in my book, “Teacher to Parent, a conversation, a memoir from a seasoned professional.”
