What a Thrill!
Posted by Hope Spencer on 23 Apr 2009 | Posted in: Inspiration and Motivation, Teachers and Teaching
Recently, I was entertaining my nieces, Helen, 9, and Sarah, 7, while we were waiting out a relative’s procedure at the hospital. I was surprised to find out that neither one of them had ever played hangman, so I explained the rules, drew a gameboard, and then drew enough spaces for the word hospital. I gave them a clue—“a place”—and they began taking turns calling out letters.
Right away, Helen realized that she should find the vowels first. On each of her turns, she called out a vowel, and Sarah called out consonants that each resulted in an addition to the hangman. When we had o, i, and a, it was Sarah’s turn. She tapped her chin and then muttered, “So I know it must be a three-syllable word.”
How about that? It reminded me of those moments in the classroom when a child would totally surprise me with something he or she had learned, something that made me happy and proud for them, something that made me so thrilled to be working with children. Moments like that made me want to run out in the hall and yell and tell everyone what had just happened or take a picture of the child and record the event.
So, here’s your chance. Take a moment to “run out in the hall” and tell us about your last thrilling moment with your students. Inspire us!
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In Kindergarten we go out to the hallway to write words from memory. It can be any word you know how to spell. In the fall we struggle to write 5-7 words. By mid-year we know color words, family words, and rhyming words. Some students can write 20 words! By the spring we’re really know a lot of words. I always remind them to think of words from our themes in centers. Imagine my surprise last week when one of my “average” kids wrote ‘dinosaur’ as we finish up that unit in science. WOW!
My thrill came just last week when one of my struggling Kdg. students, that has not spoken but a few times this year…very shy young man..looked up at me and answered all of my questions without a moments hesitation-with a smile on his face!!!!!!!!! My year is complete now!
I have a little girl in my class that has just turned 5. We read rebus stories once a week. When she started reading all of the words herself. I wanted to run out in the hall.