A perfect day is a rarity. With 30 kindergarten students, there’s almost always something — or many things — to keep my teaching partner, Paula, and I busy, but the last couple of days this week were basically perfect.
- The learning was settled.
- The play seemed calm.
- Kids were consistently supporting each other, or solving problems on their own.
Everything was just wonderful. Perfect. And yet, then Paula and I had a problem: what should we do? We know the benefits of getting involved in play, asking questions, and extending learning … but we didn’t want to ruin anything. It’s almost like that fear, “If I get too close, something is going to go horribly wrong.” 🙂
We spent a lot of time standing back and watching play. We commented to each other on what we saw, and recorded the students and the use of the space.
Eventually, we decided to connect with some children on the writing they were doing — spending a longer time with these children as we had the time to do so — and then inserting ourselves in a few different places to connect briefly with other children.
As the year comes to an end, these perfect days remind us that all of the work that we’ve done up until this point has made a difference. Kids have developed the independence and problem solving skills to support themselves as well as each other. I love that they’re independent enough to even tackle Pizza Day on their own …
but it’s also on these rare perfect days that I wonder if we should be doing more. How often and how long can you just stand back? How do you decide? If the biggest problem that we have in the remaining months is a few perfect days, I think even this problem could be something to celebrate. What about you?
Aviva