Four years ago, as we lived through COVID restrictions, I continued to work in the Wonder Studio with students, and crafting became our safe haven. I had considered abandoning for a year, but the children would stop me in the hallway or during classes and ask, “When is Wonder Studio starting again? You need to get it up and running!” I could not disappoint them. I have been privileged to work alongside some of the bravest and most brilliant little girls who would not take “NO!” for an answer. So, I kept offering times throughout that COVID year, stopping occasionally when restrictions prevented us from meeting.
Category: Learning Differences
Champions of the Testing Season
As a Learning Specialist, my job is to monitor and support learning in early childhood through fifth-grade classes. This is the place of my ultimate joy and satisfaction - seeing children grow, witnessing their struggles, and their hard-fought accomplishments. The daily struggles seem like small roadblocks to adults, but to children, struggles loom large. And if you have a learning difference, struggles can seem overwhelming. We do all in our power to motivate and encourage the young minds in our charge. Sometimes these efforts work right away, sometimes it takes a long time to see the fruits of our labor.
Working in the Wonder Studio: Setting the Stage
This month, it is the 3rd grade’s turn in the Wonder Studio. I usually have a packed crowd waiting to create, but this group is a little reticent, and I have had only 3 to 6 students come to form. However, what they lack in volume, they make up for in collaborative creativity.
Joy to Writers: Lessons from 2nd Grade
This week, I had the great pleasure of working with our 2nd grade students. I did a short, guided listening activity in which I gave them multi-step directions and then they drew from memory. The object they were creating was a girl, a simple shape by shape little girl with a party hat on her head and a present in one hand. They all followed the directions perfectly. Then I asked them: What is the girl’s name? Who is the present for? What happened at the party? Then on the back of their paper, they were asked to tell a story. It is still amazing to me what young children can do with a simple prompt.
Put Learning in Their Hands
I’m at a point in my life when I look back and reflect on my decisions, I think about all the steps (and missteps) I’ve made that brought me this far. The one thing that stands out for me is how working with my hands has been a major theme throughout my childhood, teenage years, and all the decades of my adult life.
Revisiting a Young Writer’s Practice
As a child, I loved to write. The pencil was an extension of my hand and mind. I found that all the stories in my head could be released onto beautiful blank white paper. This revelation was exciting to me. I couldn’t wait to jot down my stories. It took me some time to realize that not everyone in the world finds writing fun and adventurous. It wasn’t until I became a teacher that I learned that there are children who have trouble getting their stories down on paper.
Daily Dose of Joy
I put down my briefcase, sat carefully down on a small chair, and introduced myself to a table of three-year-old girls. I started my teaching career working with three-year-olds. I remember days of play, imagination, and song so fondly.
Igniting Curiosity: How Skateboarding Sparks Learning
All this skateboarding got me to thinking about how children learn. Increasingly, learning seems to have become more and more passive. Teachers and technology dole out information and kids are expected to take the information and hold on to it, but I’m not sure the kids understand the importance of the information and how to take it farther. And there is so much information, it’s hard to determine what to hold on to, what is true, and what is not important. I’m wondering in my work with children this year, how I can spark that skatepark enthusiasm.
Working in the Wonder Studio: June Wrap-up
The last two weeks of school found the girls busy wrapping up their spring projects in the Wonder Studio. Even though I warned them not to start anything new, some of them could not resist. They spent their recess times painting, making, building mazes, sewing pillow, and making oodles of miniatures.
Finding Her Voice: Building a Tiny House
As a learning support specialist, I appreciate the time and effort it takes to grow. There is definitely something to Malcolm Gladwell’s “10,000 hours rule,” which states that it takes approximately 10, 000 hours to achieve mastery in a particular activity. I have watched Coco put intense focus and energy into making small objects: tiny coconut people, small animal habitats, or tiny food replicas. It seems that there were no plans. Her objects would just appear, but as I watched her, I realized that she were very significant organizational processes going on silently in her imagination.
Word Dancer: Literature, the Arts, & Education 