My kindergarteners come to school eyes wide open, excited and ready to learn especially when they get to experience things first hand! The students in my class come from many different cultures, backgrounds and life experiences where we make things real, relevant and important to them. The vision of our school is learning powered through STEAM (science, technology, engineering, art and math) which allows us to do lots of Project Based Learning. Each morning we meet in circle and work on building commonalities, friendships, and a strong community in our class where every voice matters.
The wonderful thing about my kindergarteners is their enthusiasm for learning something new!
We do a lot of scientific inquiry in our class and it is amazing to hear the questions my students come up with and what they want to learn more about. The students love having a choice in their learning direction as they choose different hands-on centers to work in throughout the day. Through a discovery-based model my students build social emotional skills, confidence, independence and a deeper understanding of the world around them.
My Project
Hands on learning is a huge part of my students' experience throughout their time in my kindergarten class. This type of learning strengthens and develops kindergartener's social skills, which helps them be successful in school. I am so excited about the Giant Tree House, furniture and figures because students can use their imaginations to create a place of their own while working together. Because this is not a "doll house" I know that the boys in my class will also be more interested in working with, building and designing the community treehouse while learning very important social skills. The multicultural family dolls will resonate with my class because the figures will parallel the students. Using their life experiences, students learn to work cooperatively, take turns, share and be creative when working with dramatic play materials, no matter their background or culture. Kindergarteners can also learn problem solving skills which is essential in school and in life.
Every year more than half of my students are English Language Learners and I can't wait to see how engaging with the dramatic play tree house will help to build their language skills!
Because items in a home are familiar to most cultures, students will be able to play, create, imagine, build and increase their conversational language and knowledge of everyday item words. It is amazing how students of differing languages can play, experiment and contribute to each others language development. With our class having a heavy focus on hands on materials and learning through doing, these new materials will be a great addition to our class. In working with the Giant Treehouse students will increase language, social skills, cooperation and spatial relation skills all while having fun!
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