- Yesterday Jenn was talking to Simon and she said something was Ridiculous. He said, I don't think you meant to use that word. That word means funny. She had to explain that there is way to use that word where it means something just shouldn't happen that way.
- He is sitting in the room playing and ignoring everything around him (we think) and then two days later he will look at you and repeat verbatim what you said.
I was going back and reading the last couple weeks of the Pre-K blog which is still interesting and found a section from Ms Zairel on Simon and a couple of the other boys learning from play. There were some interesting comments on how kids piece together everything in their world to better understand the rules around them.
Post from Ms Zairel about kids learning after the jump....
A RACE CAR CHECKER
Any of you who have seen Noah come into our classroom in the morning know that he is a man on a mission. You barely get a chance to say "Hello" to him before he has finished his morning work. As soon as he is done, he gravitates towards one of two things 1) building at the carpet or 2) art. Today, he went right over to the carpet and began to build. Instead of pulling out many blocks and building a complex structure as he normally does, Noah used just three bricks. He placed them in a row and then added a clock on either side. He went to where we keep the electronics and picked out a video game remote control. When Brooks and Simon went to ask him what he was making, Noah responded that he was making a race car checker. Simon responded, "Oh Ok". He joined right in.
For about a half hour, Noah, Simon, and Brooks engaged in a game where they had the responsibility of checking every single race car in the classroom. In order to check he care, it needed to be placed right on top of the bricks. First, the car was rolled to one of the clocks. Noah pressed a sequence of buttons on the remote control. When he did this, Simon and Brooks would look at the clock, move the arms on it, and let Noah know whether or not the car had problems.
As luck would have it, each and every car that rolled through the race car checker needed to be repaired. It was mostly common issues that needed to be addressed (e.g. broken windows, broken, tires, broken lights, etc.). Brooks would use tools to work on the car and then send it back to Noah for a second inspection. Noah would put the car back on top of the bricks. This time, he would roll the car over to the second clock. After pressing buttons on the remote control, he would confirm whether or not the race car was ready to be driven again.
Noah, Simon, and Brooks worked on setting up a system. They developed a game using concepts that they already knew:
All of these little pieces of information seem commonplace to us as adults. It is important to note that for children, nothing is necessarily common knowledge. Children are constantly gathering information from the world around them and trying to make sense of it. Sometimes children will talk, draw, play, build, etc. in order to show what they know. Often, they are also trying to develop a better understanding of these things. As they work on representing this new information, they go through a process for fitting the information together. Sometimes, new ideas are formed and other times, new learning leads to even more questions.
As children have new experiences, they will continue to learn new concepts about what to expect from people and situations in their lives. As adults, we can help them develop this understanding through conversation. Talking to children is immeasurably important. Children learn new concepts and new vocabulary every day. They will have questions about these new things. Sometimes it may seem like dozens, hundreds, or millions of questions!!!
You may not answer them all, and realistically you may not know the answer to many of them. Either way, I encourage you to think about the way that you answer your child's questions about what may seem like an unimportant or random topic. Your child may be working on making connections and building an understanding of themselves and the world around them. You can share your knowledge, or use one of my personal favorite phrases, "I don't know, but I bet there's a way that we can find out..."
For about a half hour, Noah, Simon, and Brooks engaged in a game where they had the responsibility of checking every single race car in the classroom. In order to check he care, it needed to be placed right on top of the bricks. First, the car was rolled to one of the clocks. Noah pressed a sequence of buttons on the remote control. When he did this, Simon and Brooks would look at the clock, move the arms on it, and let Noah know whether or not the car had problems.
As luck would have it, each and every car that rolled through the race car checker needed to be repaired. It was mostly common issues that needed to be addressed (e.g. broken windows, broken, tires, broken lights, etc.). Brooks would use tools to work on the car and then send it back to Noah for a second inspection. Noah would put the car back on top of the bricks. This time, he would roll the car over to the second clock. After pressing buttons on the remote control, he would confirm whether or not the race car was ready to be driven again.
Noah, Simon, and Brooks worked on setting up a system. They developed a game using concepts that they already knew:
All of these little pieces of information seem commonplace to us as adults. It is important to note that for children, nothing is necessarily common knowledge. Children are constantly gathering information from the world around them and trying to make sense of it. Sometimes children will talk, draw, play, build, etc. in order to show what they know. Often, they are also trying to develop a better understanding of these things. As they work on representing this new information, they go through a process for fitting the information together. Sometimes, new ideas are formed and other times, new learning leads to even more questions.
As children have new experiences, they will continue to learn new concepts about what to expect from people and situations in their lives. As adults, we can help them develop this understanding through conversation. Talking to children is immeasurably important. Children learn new concepts and new vocabulary every day. They will have questions about these new things. Sometimes it may seem like dozens, hundreds, or millions of questions!!!
You may not answer them all, and realistically you may not know the answer to many of them. Either way, I encourage you to think about the way that you answer your child's questions about what may seem like an unimportant or random topic. Your child may be working on making connections and building an understanding of themselves and the world around them. You can share your knowledge, or use one of my personal favorite phrases, "I don't know, but I bet there's a way that we can find out..."
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