WATERMELON DAY: PK-3

Jessica's 1st Summer Mini Lesson Plan:

With Ana and the girls in town I really wanted to test out a lesson all three kids could participate in. I would like to start a local co-op eventually and if/when we foster I will likely need to include other children (possibly of various ages) into our weekly lessons. This was the perfect opportunity to see if I could find activities to challenge and excite each child individually while allowing for cooperation and social interaction throughout the lesson. We certainly had some success but I must admit it was much harder than I had anticipated. Each child has their own learning style and pace so keeping everyone's attention is sometimes trying. I was able to come up with several "watermelon" sensory or movement based activities Skylar could easily join in on and even a few complimentary ones (such as seed scooping while the older girls counted seeds) but because her attention span is not nearly as developed she quickly tired of them and preferred to wander off or be held. This was fine with Ana present but I can imagine just how difficult it would be for one adult to manage all the kids together. I'm sure there is no perfect way to prepare for teaching multiple ages, but I did feel like I picked up a couple tips from our watermelon day experiment. 

1. Be flexible: No one is learning anything if one kid is overly tired or hungry etc. Sometimes you just have to hit the pause button mid lesson and take care of the basics before you can expect everyone to focus.

2. Allow for Individuality: if one child really wants to take their time on an art project perhaps the other can repeat an experiment he or she seemed particularly interested in. Doing school together doesn't mean we all have to be doing exactly the same thing at the same time. Kids should be allowed to indulge their own interests, strengths, pace etc just as adults do. 

3. Sometimes the best lesson is the simplest: I think the kids (collectively) enjoyed and got as much out of examining a watermelon with a magnifying glass while I asked questions about what they saw (colors, patterns, bruises, textures, sound, weight, stem/seeds and on) as they did with any of the activities I carefully planned and prepped for hours. It's certainly fun to feel like the "cool" teacher with a 5 step watermelon obstacle course for them to navigate but there's nothing wrong with skipping some of those more difficult activities in favor of old fashioned conversation and exploration!
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Taegan hasn't stopped missing her friend Aria since they've left so I'm hoping we can make a trip to see them again and do another school lesson together sometime during the coming year. Homeschooling is great but with friends it is definitely more fun!