Community Helpers Unit End Booklet

I did something different with "Days of the Week" with the kids today. I asked them to stand in a straight line, and I handed out the days of the week signs to them in order, doubling a couple of them. We all stood up in the beginning, but as we sang the song, after we sang "There's Sunday", the student holding the Sunday sign would go down, and same with Monday, and so on. After Saturday, they all stood up to sing the rest of the song. It was exciting! I used to take a long time to collect the signs back, but I think the kids are getting used to the procedure, so it was done very quickly today!

Alex has been away on a vacation for a week, and he used to be with another teacher before. Today he came back and joined my class in the afternoon, and he was crying when he was coming in because he was playing on the computer and the teacher asked him to stop, but he refused. So the teacher made him come in and sit down. After a while, he calmed down, and to my surprise, he was very eager to participate in the singing! Some other boys were really loud and "singing" in a yelling kind of voice, and he suggested that we should sing quietly. I told him that it's a good idea, and we did that for all of the songs.

After reviewing the songs and adding movements to them, I handed out print-outs of a booklet about community helpers. I also wrote in some fill in the blank words for each community helper, e.g., f_re fi_ht_r. The word is at the bottom of the page in a sentence, and the kids have to look for it and fill in the missing letters. They had trouble spotting the words, so I used a crayon to underline all of the words for them. They spent a long time cutting and stapling the booklet together, and some of them didn't understand how to fill in the letters. Since we didn't have a lot of time left, I asked them to finish up with the cutting and stapling, write their name, and I told them that we'll go through the letter-writing with them together during tomorrow's lesson, so I could guide all of them at the same time.

After collecting their work, I asked all of them to go out to the open area with another teacher, except for Eric, Tony and Franklin. Eric and Tony have been noisy throughout the whole lesson. Franklin was good for the first half, but joined them towards the end. I used my super soft voice to ask them why they were talking so loudly in class, and they said that because they're friends. I think that it's a very reasonable answer, so I said that I understand, but they have had a lot of chances to talk and play together throughout the day already. But when we have a lesson, there are other kids in the class who want to learn, and they're disrupting the class because other kids can't hear. I told them that sometimes I can't even hear myself, and it is very frustrating. Then I asked them if there's anything that I can do to help them, if the class is too boring for them, if they don't like the class. Eric said that it's not boring and he likes it, but he suggested that maybe it would be better if I can teach 3 kids at a time, and do rotation after teaching a group. I said that it's a really good idea (I really do think so! I think it's brilliant for a 5-year-old kid to realize that), but because we don't have enough teachers to watch them, and we don't have enough time, it would be messy and chaotic if we really do it, so we have to live with what we can do for now. I asked them to try to focus more and not to speak so loudly in class tomorrow, and then I let them go join the rest of the kids.

I think these kind of individual talks with kids help solving behavioural problems as well as building relationships with them. It was a safe environment because I let them know that I wasn't asking them to stay for a detention or to apologize, but to have a conversation with me so that I can try to understand why they're doing what they're doing, and also how they feel in this class. Rather than focusing the attention on how angry I am or how disturbed the other kids are, I focused on how to make them feel a sense of belonging in the class, because their opinions are important to me.