Teaching using songs and videos

I've been thinking of updating this blog for a long time but just couldnt find the right

topic or title.

Then I thought would just write down whatever came to my mind.

Hmm.. let me see, whats a typical day like for me?

I reach my school at around 8:30 and I start preparing the material I am going to use on that day.

9 hours in school is a very long time and I am constantly thinking of how to keep children occupied. The less occupied they are the more trouble they make.

So for the past few weeks, on one day of the week, I show the kids some videos. 5-6 minute videos.

Started with a video of a jelly fish in water as I wanted a follow-up for a news paper article I read to them. They were very excited to see the jelly fish and asked for watching it again and again.

Then I knew this is surely a nice way of capturing their interest. The theme for our school curriculum this month is solar system and since its a very abstract concept, I feel videos are a good way to show them what happens in our universe.

One of the topics I needed to teach them was phases of the moon. Now thats surely a complex topic for 5-6 year olds. Then I found a video on youtube which was a song with lyrics and pictures of the phases of the moon. Its really amazing, coz it was easier for me also to memorize the phases when it was in a song form. For those of you interested do check out songsofhigherlearning.com.

The next week I need to teach them about eclipses and I decided to do an experiment with a torch and earth and moon models to show it. Will update you on how it went!

I like you!

Its been a long time since I wrote about my experiences. Its been so long as I've just started realizing why its so difficult and challenging to be a teacher :)

When I was new to some children, I noticed they never cared about what I said. They either thought i was one of the children there or someone else but wouldn't accept me as a teacher.

Slowly I became familiar to some of them and they left their inhibitions. Even I had inhibitions and I still have as I don't really have any experience of dealing with children before this.

One particular girl who was among the eldest in the class and specially was acting very different.

The other teachers told me that she was a very obedient and good child all the while but has now started acting differently. It puzzled me as to what I was doing wrong. There were some new children who joined the class who were super active but I still felt a rebel in her against me more than being influenced by other children.

I tried my best to be as nice as possible and make them feel that I cared for them.

Then one day something happened that embarrassed the girl greatly. She was very quiet for a long time and I kept asking her what was wrong. She even started to cry. Probably she expected me to scold her or tell her why she did something like that and so refused to tell me till I found out myself. When I did, I just helped her with it and calmed her down telling her there was nothing wrong in what she did. After that day, she was nice to me. She no longer shows any rebellious nature towards me and sometimes pays me compliments too! I was flattered the other day when she said "I like you" and came and sat next to me in a lesson.

These are the times when I feel that maybe I am good at this and just require some patience and time to sort each child's individual nature and act accordingly.

Ego in Children

Yesterday I witnessed, what we normally call ego.

One of the kids (my favorite : I know we shouldnt have favorites but what to do? I like her so much just like that!) was sitting on my lap while we were playing rhymes using the CD player. She slowly took the remote from my hand and started holding it. (She probably felt like being the one in control) I let her be as it is while all of us were enjoying the rhymes. Then one of the other kids saw the remote in her hand and came forwards and started pulling it from her hand. So I stopped her and took the remote from both of them and said since you are fighting for it, I wont give it to either of you. Then the kid on my lap pushed the other kid with her hand in anger.

I immediately told her no and asked her to say sorry. She just stared hard at that girl. Then I told the other girl to say sorry as she was the one to start the fight. She said sorry immediately. I turned back to this kid and told her she has told you sorry and now its your turn because you pushed too. She just kept staring angrily but refused to say sorry.

I kept persuading her saying it was okay to say sorry etc etc but she simply refused.

Then I told her, I wont take you down if you arent going to say sorry. I started collecting the children's bags and asked the other children to come with me in the other room to go down. I tried once again asking her to say sorry but she was just fuming. Then we just went out the room when she started howling! I went back to her and consoled her and took her down. I just didnt know how to make her let go of the anger. She clung on and cried for 5 minutes. When the sobbing stopped, I tried once again (yes I just cant let go of such things.. somehow they are very important to me). She finally relented and said sorry. I took her to the other girl and asked her to say sorry to her. She said it again using the name. After that she was fine. A bit grumpy but otherwise okay.

I'm not sure if I did the right thing by insisting so many times and making her cry. What is your opinion?

Judgements

We as teachers have a habit of judging children. "Oh this kid is too naughty!" ,

"He just wants to trouble others!" etc. We pass judgements too soon too and then these take form of prejudices and effect children later.

Children are what they are only because of their surroundings. Social behaviour cant be innated and so its up to us to develop it correctly. Passing judgements hinders this development.

Its very important for us to have an open mind, to analyze a childs behaviour and to understand why the child misbehaves. Once we have the cause, the solution to correct it comes automatically. Ofcourse, its not always straight-forward. An example could be that a child sees such behaviour at home and its not in our control to avoid that. But we can surely bring it to the concerned parents notice so they can help us too.

Rewards and punishments shouldnt be given to children. They misunderstand it. Their behaviour in front of you might be different but without you, it would be the same because the reward or punishment is only given by you. Positive behaviour can be encouraged without rewards. Acknowledging good behaviour is one such form of reinforcement of such behaviour and ignoring bad behaviour will help to keep it in check. When I say ignore, it means to the child it should seem that you didnt notice it. But ofcourse the behaviour shouldnt trouble another child and if it does, we should physically stop it.

PS: The poem is written by my hubby for me to let children know about leaves! How do you like it?

Random Events

Children notice even the smallest change in you. I found that out last week when I went to school after a hair-cut.
Around 3 kids asked me "why are your hair like that teacher?" I said "because I had a hair-cut." The answer didnt convince them. They asked me again after a while and I replied the same thing. Another older child told me I looked nice! I was so happy. Because I knew that children always tell the truth. ;)
It seems children rarely see the big picture. They always notice the finer details. In a garden with a breath-taking view of the sun set, they only notice the beauty of one flower! And we say children cannot focus :D.

On another day a boy bit a girl because he was angry. I told you about one biting incident earlier. This was a similar one with the roles exactly reversed. I am not sure why any child should bite another. Is it an instinct of us human beings? Some kind of way in which we remove our frustrations? Children sometimes are tensed about something and after causing some harm, they tend to relax. They even feel guilty but their tension is gone.

The montessori way to deal with children like this is to physically prevent the child and if unable to do so as they silently do such things, we need to walk up to them, look them in the eye and tell them that we are sad because they hurt a friend. We also need to ask them why they did that. Sometimes it might be that the other child did something to instigate this child and just because this kind of pain was physical, we didnt find out what the other child really did.

All this sounds so easy in words really, but it is tough to do it practically.

Play Clay

Today was quiet a dull day because the kids were in no mood for school after 5 days of holidays.
Few of the calm children were on leave making the others even more stormy than what they are usually.
In the morning they had fun making hand prints with paint and I introduced them to a few new songs today.
In the afternoon, I gave them some clay to work with and they tried to make flat circles and balls with it. Since their fine and gross motor skills are not yet developed, this exercise would help I thought.
They were very excited just trying to make the trunk of an elephant!!
Sometimes children can get onto your nerves also when they repeat mistakes which hurt themselves. But when they finally hurt themselves, I think the next time they take care. Till then its a bit tough to just warn them coz they hardly understand the consequence.
The best way to deal with this is to make sure theres nothing so dangerous within bounds of children. The maximum is they fall when they run and that shouldnt hurt so much if the floor is made of wood.
Today this happened to a child. Inspite of me telling him n ( n <5) times he would get hurt he ran fast and fell down. I even told him I wouldnt console him if he cried. I tried my best not to but then thats also tough. I think if I would have held on to my word, it would have been better but I went to him anyways!
After that ofcourse till end of the day he didnt run at his full speed in the class.

So thats that!

Dod-Dod

Yesterday, after the kids woke up from sleep, they were very restless.
Kept asking to be carried and were running and shouting all the time.

One kid kept repeating Dod-Dod. After every 5 minutes he would remember and say
Dod-Dod and start crying. We tried our best to understand what he wanted.
Finally one teacher asked him if he wanted to go downstairs and he nodded his head.
But then we couldnt go as they would not let the other kids work or play downstairs and his sister was downstairs and he would just want her to keep him.

So I managed to keep him for one more hour and then I thought I better go now as the other kids also kept going to the door and trying to open it.
When we went down, this kid ran to his sister and found his dod-dod (A dog soft toy!!!!)
I was so amused.. :)
If we give a child a toy, we shouldnt expect him not to want it. Its okay to give something harmless to a child.
If we dont want the child only playing pretend games all the time, we should give them real things to work with. To understand real life and to work with real things.
The things can be made small in size, but shouldnt be different in their function.

For example : Theres this plate of fruits which are made of wood. Two halfs of an apple stuck with welcrow. Then theres a plastic knife.
Now the child is supposed to learn cutting fruits using this equipment.
The child from then on assumes that a fruit needs to be joined and then cut.
It also assumes that theres no danger in cutting fruits with a knife. Wouldnt that be dangerous?
Instead if we let the child to be a bit older and explain the danger of a knife while he can understand and then let him use it, wouldn't that be more safe?