First Day in the School

I have to say that going into the school setting for FW this semester was the most comfortable for me. It's probably because I have so much more experience now, and the fact that I have children and I volunteered so much when they were in elementary school and know what it's like. I think it's also that children are usually so much more eager and open. My main concern was that I would have a really unruly child that I'd have to really firm with or there would be a language barrier which, thankfully I did not encounter.

Seeing the difference of writing abilities between K and 1st grades was interesting. It was surprising to me how many of the 1st graders used the quadropod grip until I read the chapter in the book that described the developmental sequence of writing grasps. The kindergarteners were mostly still in the static tripod grasp phase mostly used the "correct" grasp. The 1st graders were in the predynamic tripod phase which includes the quadropod grasp which gives them more control. They may not ever change this grasp which is still efficient but it is a stepping stone to the preferred dynamic tripod.

From experience I knew that in general, kindergarteners and 1st graders are eager to please and will find the fun in almost anything you bring them to play with. It was evident in the way all the children, even the more active ones, followed directions for the most part during the writing screen and though they got a bit rowdy during the free activities, they quickly came around when it was time to clean up. Also, you need to be very clear about how you expect them to behave when you need a certain behavior as in how to walk back to class after a session.

Over the next 2 sessions, I look forward to doing the MFun assessment and seeing where my kid falls in relation to where I think he is developmentally with his writing skills. I also look forward to seeing what ideas my classmates come up with to work on specific prewriting/writing skills.

What I found during this first session was how easy it was to go with the flow of what my kids were doing when they didn't want to do what I suggested and still get them to work on stuff I wanted to see them do. Just asking "can you make small balls out of the clay" didn't work but when he was making a spider, "make some eyes" worked.