One of our speech therapists has been out due to
a serious illness and I’ve been filling in for her. It‘s extra work I hadn’t
anticipated but I’ve discovered a bright side.
I’m seeing some of my old students whom I haven’t seen for almost five
years! I posted about one of them back
in 2011 and when I reminded him of the tiger in the speech room, his smile
transformed into the one I remembered. Since my time is rather limited right
now, I thought I’d share the old post with you.
The Tiger's Stripes
Late one afternoon I gathered paper and fabric scraps for a
collage project I’d planned for the following day. Slivers of paper fell to the
floor and I scrambled to clean up my mess. The next morning, one of my speech
students found two long scraps I’d missed – one sliver of orange felt and a
slip of black construction paper. His eyes went wide. He held them close to my
face and whispered, “Did you have a tiger in your room?” The other children
looked confused for a moment then their faces lit up as they saw the tiger in
their imagination, the one that had lost his stripes. Their thoughts took off
faster than the animal they’d imagined tearing around the room leaving two
stripes behind. They all spoke at once and started scouring the room for the
jaguar’s spots, after-all something must have been chasing the tiger. Their
story grew with their excitement and so did the opportunity for learning.
Many of the content standards for education can be taught
through stories, both those read to children and those they create themselves.
When they learn to write or dictate their tales they’re learning correct
sentence structures and grammatical forms. It was easy to remind the students
that the tiger hadn’t “runned” through the room but he “ran”. And when students
begin to create their own stories, they listen more closely to the structure of
others and they begin to understand central ideas.
I didn’t throw out my lesson plans the day we found the
tiger’s stripes but I was certainly able to expand on them. And the next time I
find a couple slivers of paper on the floor, I doubt I’ll sweep them away
without a thought. I hope I’ll think of the tiger that lost them.
What a gorgeous pair of stories - your story about the children, and their story. How wonderful that you were able to let their imaginations run freely around the classroom. I'm sure the experience is one that many of them will remember fondly. The effect the opportunity had upon their learning is probably greater than any attempt at calculating would show. It is great to see these types of learning opportunities being explored.
ReplyDeleteThank you for your kind words!
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