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March 28, 2008
Listening, Speaking, Reading, and Writing Made Fun for Parents
Parents stopped to talk with the interpreter and to sign in as they came into the classroom for the evening’s session. The workshop was the second in a three part series for this mostly non-English speaking group. Lucy, our interpreter, was a huge help.
Elio and his wife were back to hear more. Two English speaking moms were back in the front row. A couple of new faces joined us. Three babies held the best seats on moms’ laps as kids ran in and out from the playground outside.
What looked a bit like chaos turned into a great session on language arts. My job, as it has been for the last year, is to make learning a fun thing parents can do at home with their kids.
For this session we made a booklet. I laid out a variety of magazines and asked the parents to find a picture they liked. They were to cut it out and put it somewhere on their booklet—the front cover or inside on the front page. Pictures they chose included a family outing, kids and mom tickling each other, a flower arbor, a garden and a whole lot more. Everyone had a different idea of what appealed to them.
Then we got busy. Each parent asked someone else to tell them a story about their picture. The idea was for them to just listen—listening being the first of the four parts of language arts. The next stage was for them to tell their own story about their picture. This is the speaking or oral language part.
Before I could even get to directions about reading, they were writing stories. They wanted to put their stories on paper. English and Spanish stories were coming from all directions. One mom who said she didn’t know how to write was connected with the interpreter so she could tell her story and have it written down. No one gets left out when it comes to reading and writing your story. Some were simple and some went on for a page or two, but each story was unique.
We finished with a flourish as each person read their story aloud to someone else. Spouses laughed over the stories they wrote, friends teased each other about their choices, and babies and children listened as their parents told stories they’d never heard before.
When I first started these workshops with parents, I would try to tell them about activities they could do. These days I find it easier to do a little showing and let them do it. Everything I wanted to say about language arts got said in a four page booklet with magazine pictures pasted on the front cover and their own story inside.
Posted by Dr Joni at 08:21 AM
March 14, 2008
Support Counts
“I never went to school a day in my life,” said Elio Galarza through an interpreter last night at a parent workshop at Fremont Elementary School in Fowler, California. “I work two jobs, 16 hours a day. I want my children to be good students. I want my children to get a good job and to work an eight hour day.”
Elio and his wife have four children. One is already in college and a second in high school. They attended the third-fifth grade workshop for their third child. They are very serious about having their children succeed far beyond what they have been able to do.
So were the 30 or so other parents who attended the workshop. Magdalena Zurita, a mom who attended both last night and the night before at the K-2 workshop, said, “I want my child to study. I didn’t study. He wants to be a doctor.”
My message is always about helping and supporting a child’s learning, but in many ways last night I was preaching to the choir. I often am. Most parents really want to help their children do well, learn, get good grades, and succeed in life. I don’t have to work too much with a group like this on motivation. I only need to give them a few tips on how they might focus their efforts.
I usually provide activities parents can do at home to help. I’ve even written books about the topic with all kinds of fun activities to do. Everywhere I go I pick up new ones. No surprise from this group of parents, but last night I heard another one to share.
Josefina Lopez suggested a game she played with her child when she was learning the alphabet. She says they’d pick a letter then they’d have to come up with a first name of someone whose name started with the letter, then a last name with the same letter, a city, a flower, and as she put it “cual cosa,” another thing, that started with the letter. Josefina’s alphabet game could be a good one for driving to the store, folding laundry or doing the dishes. If you have a child just learning the alphabe try out this activity and let me know how it goes. I'm sure Josefina would like to know too.
Elio and Josefina have plans for their children. Their children know the importance of an education because their parents tell them and support them in making sure they learn. These are tomorrow’s adults and their skills are the ones we’ll depend on.
Posted by Dr Joni at 08:02 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
March 09, 2008
Theres Always a Way to Solve a Problem
Saturdays in March are busy mornings and fun afternoons. When I had four children at home, that’s the way it was. Last Saturday I watched four children, not my own, having a busy late Saturday morning and preparing for a fun afternoon.
The morning's chorea including finishing a cement sidewalk project at a new house and planting trees made the busy morning, but the fun came with a drive, several drives, on the four wheel mule. Mules aren’t like they used to be. Equipped with engines, steering wheels, and a cart, they can take children into fields and along creek beds. These days a mule can help sow flower seeds or sit quietly by while children watch beavers build a dam.
On this particular afternoon, three of the four were collecting flowers. The girls came up with a bouquet of yellow-gold, purples, and reds. Who know what the names were, but the colors were delicate and bold at the same time.
The only boy in the group brought in a few flowers as well. He wasn’t going to be outdone by his sisters. Perhaps no one would notice how much he needed the mule to take him to the farthest reaches of beyond for just the right one.
On one of his last trips into the wilds he brought back only one lone flower, a poppy, the only one in his bouquet. As he handed to me he said, “The stem cracked.”
I could indeed see where the stem had broken almost in half. The poor little flower wasn’t going to be able to stand up with the rest of the flowers he carefully arranged. He looked disappointed, but his face lit up with an idea.
“Do you have any tape?” he asked. When I hesitated he turned to his Dad, “Dad, where’s the duct tape.”
He was out the door in a second without waiting for an answer. He came back with three rolls of blue tape. “Can I use this?” he asked.
I went to find scissors. I wasn’t sure how this would work, but I loved the problem solving. In less than a minute he had bandaged the stem with a very small piece of blue tape. The flower stood tall among its relatives and gave his array a great flair.
I chuckled all the way home commenting on men’s and boy’s propensity to find more uses for duct tape than there are bricks in the sidewalk they’d been working on earlier in the day, but what I most enjoyed was the way he figured out what to do in his own way. What a fun Saturday afternoon
Posted by Dr Joni at 06:53 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack