Drums, Dolphins and Sewing

One thing I love about the enrichment room is that each day offers new and unique opportunities for learning, brought to us by students themselves.  One kindergarten interest driven center this week had the theme of drums. The student wanted to drum on real drums, an iPad app called GarageBand, and read books about drumming.  We are lucky at RES to have an awesome music teacher who inspires students love of music.  Mr. Arthur is also always willing to lend musical instruments to classrooms.  It was awesome for our drum center to have real stand up drums.  We did drum and repeat as a whole class and during centers time students were able to participate in a drum circle!  I also am excited to see students mixing technology into learning centers in a healthy way.  Students collaborated on the iPad as they learned the application and they tried to figure out ways to connect to the drumming they had just done!

In a different class a Kindergartener shared her love of dolphins (everyone in her family except her dad loves these animals and she wanted to share this with us!). We made dolphin tissue paper murals and used kinetic sand to play with dolphins and other animals in their habitat!

Another student center this week was very special as a parent was able to come and visit our class as we learned about her daughter's passion for sewing.  With parent support we had access to a sewing machine and every student in class got to make a small pillow for a stuffie.  As a teacher I would have never planned this sort of activity for a group of Kindergartners to complete in forty minutes.....but the students were motivated by her excitement and they did it!  At one point I was able to take a break from helping students cut their pillow patterns and I captured a photo of our student presenter guiding a fellow student through the use of the sewing machine.  She allowed her friend to push the pedal as she steered the fabric...all the while explaining how and what she was doing.  She was the lead teacher and it was awesome!  I also love how this student sharing build connections.  During her share another student shared how he had learned to sew last summer....how great to build connections within our classroom community!