Making New Friends and Getting to Know Each Other
Drama is a subject that requires a bit of confidence and willingness to share your creativity with others. The students and I are just getting to know each other as Drama is a class that is given for the 1st time in Kinder. In EC 3 & 4, creative play is a part of their classroom time but in Kinder, the students attend classes such as Drama, Music and Visual Arts on their own, in the company of their classroom Teacher Assistant (TA).
This week has been a wonderful time of the students and I sharing little things about ourselves and learning each others' names. We have been giving (and getting!) lots of hugs and greeting each other in the hallways or during recess.
In Drama class, we have been playing name games and sharing what some of our favorite things are, whether it be our favorite food, toys, games, people or places. These are exercises that help us to form a bond with each other, find similarities and create an environment of trust. These elements are extremely important as acting requires a great deal of trust and team work, particularly when we begin to share our ideas or prepare a performance for an audience.
The next Unit of Inquiry that the Kinder students will be focusing on is about Friendship and how these kinds of relationships are built. This week, we began to have discussions on what are the kinds of things that friends do with each other, as well as the things that we would not do to a friend.
The students engaged in an exercise called "Think, Pair, Share", where I asked them to think in silence about the kinds of things they might do with a friend. Then, they were asked to turn to the person next to them and share their thoughts with them.
Finally, the class was asked to share their ideas with me and I wrote their ideas on the board......
To finish up the class, we played some circle games while learning the song "Make New Friends". The lyrics are simple and the melody is lovely. We will continue to discuss and share the ways that we can make new friends in our classrooms and become better friends to the ones we have already established.
