The Seniors Go Investigating!

The first week of school has come and gone and I’d like to think we got off to a good start!

Like I mentioned in my previous post, majority of my students came from my class last school year so getting to know you activities are not as extensive. Also, since they are mostly familiar with the school, touring the facility was nothing new to them.

As such, I decided to make our school tour more than just a “getting to know my school” activity. I decided to do a thinking exercise to get our learning process started. I also thought that this would be a good way to assess their present capabilities and also gauge what my the two new additions to my class can do.

I started out with a drawing activity with the kids making a picture about what they think they can do, see, find or use in Playschool.

Here are a few examples of their responses:

Then we charted out their ideas and finally set off around the school to find out more about their hypotheses. After finding out if those things they drew were present in school or not, we also had brief discussions about what these were for, where it could be found and how to use these things. At the end, we had this chart:

It was a fun activity, although it was so hot so the kids and I ended up so sweaty and exhausted afterward!

This is definitely the kind of things I will miss when I “retire” from being a preschool teacher. Like many of my readers know, I am planning to make this year my last teaching year because I am no spring chicken anymore! I can feel the age creeping in. Although I do hope I can still do some consultancy or administrative work in the preschool level in the future. However, while it may be physically gentler for me, I’m sure it will be an adjustment to me, especially when it comes to the nitty-gritty details of the job such as filing business credit reports, wading through paperwork, attending to payroll, and making sure the bills are paid on time. Plus of course making sure the teachers get their benefits and the school turns a profit. Now that I think about it, it appears that teaching the kids may be a wiser decision!!!

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