I am thankful to have the freedom and permission to let children work in the ways that work best for their brains. One child made a great discovery today...
He said,"I am doing the story of The Three Little Pigs and the Big Bad Wolf but I am switching it up with the story of The Three Big Elephants and the Little Bad Mouse. This is how I would plan it. I would act it out with blocks to make sure I knew what was going to happen, what the elephants are going to do to the mouse. This would now help me to focus. If I was going to write a fairytale, I would plan it out with blocks."
This is such a lovely story. I remember when a friend's son was asked - in first grade at another school - to create a group portrait. He drew a group of numbers, all with faces and expressions, because for him, numbers have personalities. The alarms were sounded, the parents were called in, and the counselors were summoned, as they might well have been for this student who uses geometric blocks - not words - to plan his story. He is lucky to have a teacher who recognizes the value of such an unusual approach.
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