After the Thanksgiving Break and a short week, the 4-5 year old class had quite a lot of photos and drawings from their Home to School journal. To have the opportunity for everyone to share their journal, the teachers implemented a “Think, Pair, Share” concept. A think/pair/share is when a small group will report to one another and then report to the larger group. What is special about this reporting is how a peer’s journal is shared by someone else in the class. This process supports the development of the children’s memory, receptive and communicative skills, social skills and early literacy skills as they de-code what others may have written down.
To get everyone ready we sang the name song, "Hello Mila how are you? What was favorite food to eat on Thanksgiving?". This asked the children to remember an experience that happened almost a week ago. It also allowed them to note who had heart connections with something someone else shared. When someone shared something new, for instance Frankie liked green beans, some of the children remembered they too ate green beans. With everyone cluing in to one another we split the children up into four groups with the most children in each group being four. Jenna sat with one group, Melissa sat with another group and I worked between two of the smaller groups.
Right away we noticed how excited the children were to share in this intimate way. For starters, we noticed the children reporting would follow similar techniques the teachers would use when reporting to the larger group. The children would hold it in their laps or up in the air with the images pointing towards their peers. Other groups would lay their journals on the floor and point out what they wanted to share while their peers circled around. We noticed how focused the children were in hearing what was being said and some children even asked the reporter questions or gave comments using "I notice" or "I wonder" statements.
In these photos notice the following: In the first photograph, Kate shows her group her journal using her book mark as a pointer. The use of this prop gave Kate and others exactly what to draw their eyes to. Aiden and Paul Eric are looking directly at Kate's self-portrait of her turning 5 years old. Chloe, while still listening, begins her final preparations in finding the journal page she wants to share. In the second photograph, Melissa holds Olivia's journal as she shares with the group what she did. By freeing up her hands, Olivia was able to focus on how she dressed up as Rapunzel. In the third photo, Jenna models to the other children listening to someone else. In turn, you can see how focused Brett and Linden are.
In this photograph please note the following: Leithian shows Nicky, Grace and Oli (barely visible in the photograph) what she drew and wrote down. Leithian first asked me to read the words. I pointed to each one while I said them. After I read it to her she read it to the group.
We spent nearly 20 minutes in the small groups before we gathered in the larger group. From there we asked each group one at a time who wanted to report on something a peer shared. We did not ask each child to report on something instead decided to see who wanted to take the initiative and model for the other children this process. We realize from our parent teacher conferences that some children will observe how their peers participate first in a new activity before trying something themselves (observational learners). Others, like to dive right in and learn while doing (experiential learners), there are others who like to know ahead of time to plan out what they will say (methodical learners) and some will need to hear the directions, have time to process this and then follow accordingly (verbal learners). Children can of course go in and out of each one of these and other learning styles depending on the activity, the number of children, the environment, adult participation, and other determining factors. Since this was new we wanted to observe how the children would respond to this new system to see if it would be something we may change to facilitate more reporting in the larger group.
The following are what some of the children shared about their peer's reporting:
Tommy: Bree went to the mountain (referring to going to Lake Tahoe).
Logan: Zaydan say on TV that roly-polies have 14 legs!
Mila: Olivia turned into Rapunzel.
Frankie: Linden had Halloween stickers.
Linden: Frankie had a light thing that was white.
Grace: Nicky went to a football game.
When each of these children raised their hands and reported to the larger group it was very noticeable how happy the children whose stories were being told were.
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I notice – I wonder