Today I had the bright idea of bringing in a play workbench with toy wrenches, hammers, nails, pliers, a level and more! I envisioned how much fun the kids would have as they pretended to build and be carpenters. Perfect for this first lesson about Noah and his family building the big boat!
So with high hopes, I set out the workbench as one of the Play to Learn activities in the room. And, just as expected, every single child that came in wanted to play with the fun building toys. Can you imagine what happened to my bright idea, however? Soon there were tussles over who was going to get to use the hammer, and quarrels about the cool drill and tug-of-wars with the interesting-looking pliers and wrenches. To top it all off, the workbench had buttons to push that made all the sounds of the tools (including a commercial message that said “Welcome to Home Depot!).
My bright idea didn't turn out the way I thought it would. And the conversation about Noah that I had intended to have didn’t take place. That was the bad news. The good news, however, is that the Bible verse for today “God made us to do good” (see Ephesians 2:10) was a perfect fit for my bright-idea activity. There were plenty of opportunities (“teachable moments,” I call them) to talk about good things to do when we’re playing with friends!
Sunday, September 26, 2010
Bright Ideas
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2 comments:
I love it! It is so funny. No matter how much you plan, you can never predict exactly what the kids are going to do or learn. That is why, I think teachers should always be flexible and have a back-up plan or be able to think on their feet.
I have taught 2's for over 8 years and I just wrote curriculum for Kindergarten and switched to teaching them. Sometimes the most important lesson being learned in my class with the twos may have been to be gentle.
You are so right about having a back-up plan! I'm not a musician, but there are several fun active songs I'm ready to use whenever I need to gather kids together.
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