I'm SO Bored!
"I'm SO bored!" is something we often hear in our home during the summer months. I know some parents would be quick to sign up their child for a camp or class to curb the summer doldrums, but we have not. Why? Because from boredom, creativity often can be found. And in our house, indeed my son has found some creative outlets!
Recently, he has taken to creating his own "music appreciation" class. In the mornings after breakfast, he pushes the furniture back, turns on the CD player, and begins to dance. This is after he has created a costume to wear from his dress-up box that reflects the storyline of the music. All kinds of animals and characters have graced our family room floor--from a lion and a pirate, to a cowboy and a bunny. He is in his own world when he's dancing and singing; so much so that when I tried to sneak a peak at his performance, he closed the kitchen door and said he wanted to do it alone.
Another creative outlet he has had is designing contraptions with his father's tools. I found him in the garage the other day, deeply engaged with balancing a body board on a stool and a box, and intricately weaving together wrenches, pliers, and screwdrivers on the backside of the body board. If he removed one piece, the entire contraption would fall apart, so he figured out how to move pieces around without them all tumbling onto the ground.
I smile to myself each time I see him engaged in an activity of his own creation, as I know he is developing extremely important skills when he is in this creative mode - the ability to organize information and things, the ability to execute against a plan, and most importantly, the ability to take an abstract idea and make it into a concrete experience or object. These are skills he will need as a learner in all levels of school, as well as in the work-world.
Sometimes, I do offer a suggestion to spur an idea. For example, he asked me how to build a house of cards, so I showed him a couple of ways to make the cards balance together. After that, he created a large "city" of card houses underneath the dining room table, and what was not immediately apparent to me was that he had planned his city so that each "house" was close enough to the next one that it would fall over in a domino-like fashion when he pushed one of the houses over. It was fascinating watching him build and knock down his city over and over, each time making adjustments to the distance between each house.
As a parent who is concerned about the proverbial "summer slip," I do supplement his creative, ill-structured activities with focused practice and conceptual development in reading, writing, and mathematics. I also integrate history and science concepts into our activities, to be sure he is getting those core areas, too.
He writes in a journal at least 3 times a week, reads 3-5 books daily on his own (we're talking books that are at his independent reading level), and then we read 1-2 more books aloud to him, or a few chapters from a book. For mathematics, he mostly does conceptual activities with manipulatives, such as building his understanding of counting on, adding or subtracting 1 to a number, and comparing quantities to determine greater than/less than/equal to.
I let his interests guide our work, as I know this will ensure his eagerness to learn, but I also gently nudge him in areas he is reluctant. And when he protests, I find myself saying "anything worth doing is often difficult" and remind him that the point of learning new things often is exploration and practice, and understanding does not always come right away.
This is a constructivist approach to learning and teaching, which means that the child constructs his understanding of a concept or skill to make the meaning his own. And while I pepper some direct instruction where needed, overall, I am providing a foundation for my son where inquiry, problem-solving, and creative thinking are at the heart of his learning.
I know summer will pass quickly, as it always does, but I will be able to look back and reflect on the variety of learning experiences he has had and the paths he has taken to create his own understanding of the world, and know positively that he is well prepared to embark on a new year of learning and growing in elementary school.
Recently, he has taken to creating his own "music appreciation" class. In the mornings after breakfast, he pushes the furniture back, turns on the CD player, and begins to dance. This is after he has created a costume to wear from his dress-up box that reflects the storyline of the music. All kinds of animals and characters have graced our family room floor--from a lion and a pirate, to a cowboy and a bunny. He is in his own world when he's dancing and singing; so much so that when I tried to sneak a peak at his performance, he closed the kitchen door and said he wanted to do it alone.
Another creative outlet he has had is designing contraptions with his father's tools. I found him in the garage the other day, deeply engaged with balancing a body board on a stool and a box, and intricately weaving together wrenches, pliers, and screwdrivers on the backside of the body board. If he removed one piece, the entire contraption would fall apart, so he figured out how to move pieces around without them all tumbling onto the ground.
I smile to myself each time I see him engaged in an activity of his own creation, as I know he is developing extremely important skills when he is in this creative mode - the ability to organize information and things, the ability to execute against a plan, and most importantly, the ability to take an abstract idea and make it into a concrete experience or object. These are skills he will need as a learner in all levels of school, as well as in the work-world.
Sometimes, I do offer a suggestion to spur an idea. For example, he asked me how to build a house of cards, so I showed him a couple of ways to make the cards balance together. After that, he created a large "city" of card houses underneath the dining room table, and what was not immediately apparent to me was that he had planned his city so that each "house" was close enough to the next one that it would fall over in a domino-like fashion when he pushed one of the houses over. It was fascinating watching him build and knock down his city over and over, each time making adjustments to the distance between each house.
As a parent who is concerned about the proverbial "summer slip," I do supplement his creative, ill-structured activities with focused practice and conceptual development in reading, writing, and mathematics. I also integrate history and science concepts into our activities, to be sure he is getting those core areas, too.
He writes in a journal at least 3 times a week, reads 3-5 books daily on his own (we're talking books that are at his independent reading level), and then we read 1-2 more books aloud to him, or a few chapters from a book. For mathematics, he mostly does conceptual activities with manipulatives, such as building his understanding of counting on, adding or subtracting 1 to a number, and comparing quantities to determine greater than/less than/equal to.
I let his interests guide our work, as I know this will ensure his eagerness to learn, but I also gently nudge him in areas he is reluctant. And when he protests, I find myself saying "anything worth doing is often difficult" and remind him that the point of learning new things often is exploration and practice, and understanding does not always come right away.
This is a constructivist approach to learning and teaching, which means that the child constructs his understanding of a concept or skill to make the meaning his own. And while I pepper some direct instruction where needed, overall, I am providing a foundation for my son where inquiry, problem-solving, and creative thinking are at the heart of his learning.
I know summer will pass quickly, as it always does, but I will be able to look back and reflect on the variety of learning experiences he has had and the paths he has taken to create his own understanding of the world, and know positively that he is well prepared to embark on a new year of learning and growing in elementary school.
Labels: constructivist, direct instruction, ill-structured, mathematics, reading, writing
posted by The Well-Rounded Child at
11:26 AM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
Subscribe to Post Comments [Atom]
<< Home