1. My "wobble chairs" and bean bag chairs
Why do I sometimes love them? - Students who struggle with staying still during a lesson really find it helpful to sit and squirm on the wobbly stools that I recently bought with my book fair funds. It can also be an easy way to show students my appreciation for them and their efforts, by offering them one of these "special seats" for a short time. Flexible seating can be a positive thing.
Why do I sometimes hate them? - Students fight over them constantly. I've tried to ensure that everyone has had a turn sitting on these alternates but it's mentally tiring to continually rotate students through. I wanted to get to a stage where we've all gotten the novelty out and then these seats can be for students who really need them, but we're not there yet. One student that I thought would really benefit from using the wobbly stool ended up standing on top of it and jumping off, which meant I had to lock the stools away in my office when his class came to the library. The bean bag chair was a donation from my son, who was dismayed to see that it had paint on it and was the worse for wear. The wobble chairs cost $100 each; I plan to get more to hopefully lessen the arguments, but that's a lot of money to spend!
2. My marbles
Why do I sometimes love them? - I was delighted with how the addition of marbles inspires students to be creative in their play. (See the post a few weeks ago about how students altered their Keva Plank builds to incorporate ramps when I included a marble.) I like how versatile and fun marbles can be. I bought a little book of marble games that I haven't even cracked open yet.
Why do I sometimes hate them? - Marbles are easy to smuggle out of the library, and some of my favourite marbles (that I bought while I was visiting my sister in Calgary last March) have gone missing (and have possibly been stolen). They roll all over the place (including under shelves) and despite having a specific container to live in, marbles get left in boxes and other unsuitable places, which means students often complain there aren't enough marbles available. Then there's a student who pushes things up his nose, so now we have to worry about having things that are small (like marbles and beads) around for him to pilfer and use inappropriately. It's literally and figuratively true that there are days when I've lost my marbles.
3. Lego
Who do I sometimes love them? - This is one of the most popular items in my Library Learning Commons Makerspace. Students of all ages can build anything. I can even include it in my library and media lessons, like I did this past week when I used Lego as "loose parts" and asked students to make different kinds of emojis. Here's just four of the many examples students made.
Why do I sometimes hate them? - I allow students to save their Lego creations on the tops of our shelves, but there's a time limit. I put the builds back after a week or two, and the creators are often irate that I've demolished the fruits of their labour, even though I've warned them that we can't preserve them forever and that we can take photos if they want. I find Lego pieces EVERYWHERE in the library, despite my best efforts to keep things tidy and remind students to clean up. With my emoji lesson, I received push back from students who wanted to stack and build what they wanted and not attempt the task at hand.
4. Halloween
Why do I sometimes love it? - As Doug Peterson has noted quite accurately, I adore costumes. I like making costumes, buying costumes and dressing up in costumes. It's fun and creative and playful. I love seeing other people's costumes too. It's a great holiday for taking photos. Plus there's the candy and the chance to see your neighbours as they bring around their children from house to house trick-or-treating.
Why do I sometimes hate it? - Aviva Dunsiger wrote a great blog post about how dys-regulating Halloween can be for some students (and adults). (This isn't her first post on the topic. Check this one out from the self-professed "Halloween Humbug".) Students can be wired and the routine is messed up. Emotions can run high, for students who get afraid of the scary imagery, or students who don't celebrate and feel excluded, or for students who are overly excited about the costumes or the excessive amounts of candy. We tried something new at our school this year, to try and combat the chaos. I'm not sure how successful it was; I really hope we take the opportunity at some point to analyze and discuss the change.
I don't really have any final thoughts on these four items that inspire such mixed emotions. There are positive parts to them, which is why I still continue to keep the Lego, marbles, and flexible seating around. And who knows - maybe "absence makes the heart grow fonder" and my upcoming two days at the ECOO BIT18 conference may rejuvenate me in unexpected ways.
Oh Diana! I could so relate to your love/hate relationship with all of these things. I would probably add "pillows" to my list, but that's another story. :) I wonder if you could bring some of these problems to your students. Could they help figure out some ways to solve them? Might they offer a different perspective? I have some different thoughts on each of your areas, so I'll apologize in advance if this comment ends up being like a post of its own.
ReplyDelete1) The "Wobble Chairs" and Bean Bag Chairs - I often think about how Stuart Shanker approached this topic in the Foundations 1 course. While these items can be self-regulating for some kids, they can be very dysregulating for others. The movement may up-regulate children that need to down-regulate. I wonder if this is why you even saw the student that jumped off of the stool. Was it not the right fit for him? Even each bean bag chair can be different. Some are super soft and "hug" the kids, while others don't. I wonder if kids could reflect on how they feel in each space. Do these areas work for them? Why or why not? What does "calm" even feel like, and do these seating options help the children feel "calm?" Would some self-reflection add another element to these seating areas, but also, help some children realize that these spaces don't work for them? Some kids may need your help with this one too.
2) Oh marbles! We have worked through these same problems in our class before ... and we still do! We did buy some Dollar store marbles which help, as there will always be missing ones. We've also tried getting kids to "write a note" if they want a marble. This way, you're handing one marble to one child. It's also good for literacy. Some of our JKs, will even draw a picture of a marble and write down an initial sound, a scribble, or a random letter. What a nice way to celebrate literacy! Then you don't have a million marbles going through your library too.
3) Paula and I constantly talk about these Lego woes. We have Lego in very specific areas in the classroom, and yet, the pieces end up everywhere. I wonder how they travel. Your point about the children that didn't want to partake in the emoji lesson intrigues me. What was the goal in this lesson? Could the kids have met this goal and used Lego in another way? Could this very question have spurred some creative thinking? Just wondering ... I'm not sure what you intended. I wonder if children's prior experience using Lego may have them wanting to use it in a specific way. Maybe they could have done so, and still added in an emoji component. I'm not sure, but I would be curious to find out.
4) I'm definitely the Halloween Grinch, and have many of my own concerns regarding costumes. Our kids come dressed up all the time, but there's a different feel on the holiday. I also wonder if the excitement around the costume causes some dysregulation. What do kids dress up as? Could this make a difference? I saw lots of superheroes. Kids have some preconceived notions about superheroes. I wonder if this also changes the play and makes for some louder play.
So much to think about here, Diana! Thanks for such a great post!
Aviva