Well, it all starts with the best of intentions... the creation of a project or activity we think the children will LOVE...that simply falls flat! I KNOW I can't be the only teacher out there that has had this happen! You mean you've NEVER experienced this!?
In my room it just involves a VERY QUICK realization that the project or activity or lesson is about to fall flat. We can tell within the first....oh.....2 seconds of an activity! HOW can we tell?
We can tell that the activity will fall flat because it is OVER in 2 seconds! The general attention span for anything that is not monumentally exciting is exactly...2 seconds.
This is how it started today...with the best of intentions. My own child (now 17) made beautiful ornaments when he was in preschool. The children had filled clear colored ornaments with several colors of paint and swirled it around inside to create wonderful colors. Wow! This would be a wonderful, simple activity all my children could participate in and enjoy....yes....for what turned out to be 2 seconds.
The children seemed to miss the fact that the ornaments were plastic so they could roll them around without breaking them! They seemed to miss the fact that they could see colors swirling and mixing inside. They seemed to miss the fact that they could do this virtually on their own! Maybe they missed this because they decided they were done within 2 seconds!
So, without further insistence that we stick with an activity that was clearly not going to happen today, we moved on to exploring the sensory table before we ate our lunch! Sometimes, you just have to go with the flow...and the flow was certainly not moving in the direction of creating beautiful ornaments today!
In my room it just involves a VERY QUICK realization that the project or activity or lesson is about to fall flat. We can tell within the first....oh.....2 seconds of an activity! HOW can we tell?
We can tell that the activity will fall flat because it is OVER in 2 seconds! The general attention span for anything that is not monumentally exciting is exactly...2 seconds.
This is how it started today...with the best of intentions. My own child (now 17) made beautiful ornaments when he was in preschool. The children had filled clear colored ornaments with several colors of paint and swirled it around inside to create wonderful colors. Wow! This would be a wonderful, simple activity all my children could participate in and enjoy....yes....for what turned out to be 2 seconds.
The children seemed to miss the fact that the ornaments were plastic so they could roll them around without breaking them! They seemed to miss the fact that they could see colors swirling and mixing inside. They seemed to miss the fact that they could do this virtually on their own! Maybe they missed this because they decided they were done within 2 seconds!
So, without further insistence that we stick with an activity that was clearly not going to happen today, we moved on to exploring the sensory table before we ate our lunch! Sometimes, you just have to go with the flow...and the flow was certainly not moving in the direction of creating beautiful ornaments today!
Isn't that funny how hard it is to predict what will capture their interest? This happens to me all the time:)
ReplyDeleteYes, they definitely keep us on our toes! At least our job is never boring! :)
ReplyDelete