Teachable Moments...

I am a mommy by choice and a teacher by trade.

Education is in my blood and I've wanted to be a teacher since the first grade.  I loved to play school as a child and as an adult I continue to be passionate about learning and teaching.

No longer a classroom teacher I spend a lot of time working with adult learners.  I've chosen this path with  the hope that I would be able to impact a greater amount of students by working to ensure that all students have a highly effective and qualified teacher.  Nevertheless, I miss working with kids.  Their inquisitiveness, spontaneity, innocence, questions, and excitement kept me young.  There's just no job out there that can make such a huge impact and be so fulfilling.

Now that I am a mom I get to use the strategies that I learned at the College of Education, from my colleagues at work, and from my mentors every day with my own children.  Some of the strategies I employ are subtle.  Simple acts like asking them how their day was at school when I pick them up and imploring them to answer with details and descriptive words build vocabulary and language skills.

Some days I bump up the teachable moments by ramping up our vocabulary words.  I've taught my three and five year old the terms synonyms and opposites.  When using adjectives I always ask them for more ways to say typical words.  For example, if they tell me that dessert was good, I ask them to tell me other ways to say good.  They use words like fabulous, and fantastic.  The three year old has taken to using the word, "similar."  He will point out objects around him and tell me that the "circle is similar to the ball."  Gotta love that!!

Tonight we really took the teachable moment to a higher level since I had just attended two days of the Model School Conference put on by the International Center for Leadership in Education.  Inspired, I led my kids through a 30 minute science lesson on Floating and Sinking.  I taught them the concepts of "float," "sink," "predict," and "validate."  Tough terms for pre-kindergartners?  Not at all.  I asked them to make guesses whether their shampoo bottle would sink or float.  When they told me float I explained that they just made a prediction. We then threw a number of different objects into the tub after making predictions for sink or float.  When nothing sank I asked them to think of objects that might sink in the tub and they told me stone.  I asked them to validate that a rock would sink by thinking back to a time when they saw a rock sink.  They immediately made connections to our day at the beach last week when they were throwing rocks and they were sinking to the bottom of the ocean.

There are many more time fillers that do with my kids.  I keep a stack of index cards with sight words in my bag and van to help them practice memorizing basic words they should have in their repertoire.  We do a lot of counting, adding, and subtracting of objects.  We look for patterns that exist in the world around us.  I talk to them pointing out objects that are new to them and naming them and giving them definitions.  When we are out and about I ask them to tell me what they like about something.  At the museum, I ask for specifics about what they like about the art as well as what they don't like.  I ask them to compare to other experiences we've had.  And of course we read and experience the world as much as possible.

These teachable moments make learning fun for my kids and I and really encourage the both of us to be life long learners.