Intentional Teaching

After receiving her children's first semester kindergarten report cards, a colleague with twins recently shared her astonishment over the amazingly large number of standards children in kindergarten are required to master. Our report card assesses 14 literacy standards and 17 math standards. In addition, we are required to teach multiple science and social studies standards as well, all while meeting the social and emotional needs of children who have entered school with a wide range of skills and behaviors.

As the number of academic demands placed on our youngest learners has increased, the need to be intentional about everything we plan and do as educators has increased as well. The challenge has been to find ways to get rid of the "fluff" while still making the kindergarten classroom an engaging place to play and learn. 

Intentional teaching means that teachers are deliberate, purposeful and thoughtful about the decisions they make and the actions they take in the classroom. It involves foresight and a deep understanding of the standards. It also involves using the classroom as a "third teacher" in order to reach all learners.

Each week when I plan, I try to find ways to "kill two birds with one stone," as the saying goes. For example, recently, I shared the book Snowmen at Night during quiet story time. My students loved the story and it fit nicely with the snow related provocations I had set up around the classroom. During my weekly scrolls through Pinterest, I saw many extension activities to do with the book. The old me would have chosen the cutest activity to do simply because it was cute. However, the new, intentional me found an activity which would allow me to assess my student's ability to meet the following literacy standards:

• I can put spaces between words when I write.

• I can sound out words and write them phonetically.

• I can capitalize the word I when writing.

• I can recognize, use and name end punctuation.

• I can read and write kindergarten high frequency words.

In addition, the students would strengthen their fine motor skills as they tore the paper into small pieces and they would work on persevering through a long project, which is a skill we have been working on. And if this wasn't enough, I could also see which skills students were using, but confusing--such as this boy's use of a second vowel in order to make the long i sound in words like by and myself. This would give me something to focus on during our word study lessons, along with the teaching of the inflected ending -ing. And you have to admit--the project is pretty stinkin' cute!

Early in the fall, when the students were adjusting to the long days of school, I tried to get outside as much as possible. As much as I would have loved to use this time to play simply for the sake of playing, I also found intentional ways to sneak in some learning--such as this activity where we practiced demonstrating positional words on the playground equipment. After printing the pictures and mounting them on card stock we worked on beginning writing skills by labeling the pictures with the positional words.

Rigor does not have to replace play. We can be intentional about the activities we plan so that we can help our students meet academic goals while meeting their emotional and social needs as well.