I was teaching about general versus specific. Off the top of my head, I said, "I ate some food for lunch. I ate couscous." I should have known better. Right away, from my talker came "Goose goose?"
We were reading The Widow's Broom and one pictured showed the widow awake and alarmed by what she saw in the kitchen. I asked the kids to infer about her. One of my boys said she looked freaky and my talker said, "She's getting her beauty sleep." I had to grab my blogging book and write it down!
Proof that literacy stations work - While two of my boys were at the computer working on a Storybird, Mr. Unresponsible kept writing sentences that were pretty short and simple. My Young-Old-Man said, "You should do a longer one because it makes us stronger writers." The learning occurred while I wasn't there! Love it!
In The Magician's Elephant, it references orphans and nuns. After teaching about orphans, one of my boys brought up a book that had orphans in it to share with me. I LOVE THIS! Way to connect. However, the class did not know what a nun is. One girl thought a nun wore hoodies. Another thought I had said noun. Another thought a nun was a widow. I tried to explain it as best as I could. Someone wanted to know what a boy nun was (a monk). After explaining that a nun chose to serve God instead of getting married, many of my boys declared that they wanted to be monks. We'll see boys...
I truly wonder what makes them use the words right away in their language. Is it because I model this and use them throughout the day too? Is it just the community that we've established? Is it just because of who they are? Is it a combination of all of these things? Whatever it is, I like learning these words more than the words "suggested" from our basal series.
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