The moment when
you are able to get through to a student and make a connection is by far the
very best one in my book.
In Jumpstart
this session, I was ready to play Go Fish with my students and was looking
forward to seeing them learn the game and enjoy playing with each other.
Puzzles tends to draw in fewer students in comparison to the other centers in
our classroom--it doesn’t have the cool materials from dramatic play or the
creative outlet that art or writing offer--but there are always a few students
who enjoy solving puzzles and playing games. As I headed over to my center, I
was slightly disappointed but not at all surprised (there were snowflakes in
dramatic play!) to find that there were no students who had followed me over; I
was going to have to go grab some friends from one of the other centers. As I
was standing up to go invite students to come play with me, I heard a voice
behind me.
“Can I play Go
Fish with you Miss. Morgan?”
As I looked and
saw who the voice belonged to, I was excited and shocked to realize that it was
a little boy who had been pulled out of my reading group earlier by his teacher
for behavior. This little boy,although smart is easily distracted and is often
taken aside by his teacher to regroup.
“Of course!” I
grinned, exceedingly enthusiastic, “We are going to have the BEST time playing
Go Fish because this is my very favorite game EVER!”
We sat down on
the colorful carpet and he picked out the yellow deck of cards to play with
“because yellow is the coolest,” and once we were settled I asked him if he’d
ever played Go Fish before. He responded that no, he didn’t know how to play
but that he was going to learn. Yes you
are, I thought, because this is
Jumpstart and we help you learn and you help us learn and it’s AWESOME! I
explained how to play and we began to play our first game.
After we had
played multiple rounds of just the two of us (all of which I lost) two other
students decided to join us.
“Can we play
too?”
I glanced in
front of me to see a half played game of Go Fish and a little boy who was
beginning to look extremely unsettled. He pulled his cards in closer, and
defensively declared that “these were all his Go Fish cards.” Oh no, I thought, he was doing so well and
what am I supposed to do now they need to share but I can’t tell them to share
oh no what should I-
“These cards are mine, but if you take ones from the
Go Fish pile, I can teach you how to play!”
These three students played Go Fish for the rest of
center time; this connection,these moments: this is why I am a Jumpstart.
~Morgan Taylor
Corps Member
Team Determination
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