Seeming that it has taken forever and a day for me to write these, I decided to write about days 11 and 12 as opposed to just day 12. Enjoy the madness. (Oh and I decided to keep with the backwards theme).
On the twelfth day of Oh Kinderness my students gave to me, twelve students misunderstanding a dozen.
Some of you may remember from my Oh Kinder! posts from facebook the kinder counting wall. If not I'll refresh your memory. I was trying to get students to count to a certain number using the number line on the wall. Students would get to the number and count past or skip the desired number and it was super frustrating, yet funny (I'll copy the post later for your reading pleasure). Anyway, this was a similar situation. I believe I was in a first grade class and we were moving through a practice test. One of the questions came up about how many eggs come in a standard egg carton. The question looked something like this:
Quandora has a carton of eggs. How many eggs are in the carton?
A) 14
B) 6
C) A dozen
D)3
Oh, and there was also a picture of a carton of eggs. Looking at this question I didn't think it would be too hard to answer, but I'm working with first graders, their minds are still molding. So here's what went down:
Me: So how many eggs are in the carton?
Dolly: 7!
Me: Is seven an option?
Dolly: No.
Me: then how can that be the answer?
Dolly: I don't know.
Me: Remember, it's one of the answers shown. Count how many eggs are in the carton.
Broseph: 14!
Me: Did you count the eggs?
Broseph: No.
Me: Well count the eggs and then give me an answer.
Bloquita: 12!
Me: Right, but do we have 12 as an option?
Bloquita: No.
Me: No, we don't. But which option could be 12? Three are numbers we know, one is not.
Bloquita: B!
Me: Is six the same as 12?
Bloquita: No.
Me: Then how can six be the answer?
Bloquita shrugs.
This went on for a bit. They finally figured it out as I guided them through the fact that 3, 6, and 14 do not equal 12, so we finally decided that a dozen was acceptable. So fabulous!
On the eleventh day of Oh Kinderness my students gave to me, eleven practices of this song (the original).
I actually had to practice this song with a couple of classes, one kinder and one first grade. The first grade class did a great job, kinder not so much. I don't think the kinder class had learned all of the days yet, or if they had, they struggled to remember. It also might have been the fact that they are still learning to read and couldn't follow the board very well. Whatever the case, I basically sang the song by myself while the kinders made strange grunting, humming, and screeching noises. Needless to say, first grade did way better. So this particular teacher had cards for the students to look at. To make the song into more of an activity, I chose twelve students to be the days. Each got a card and had to raise it when it was their day. So we went through the song like normal, but when we got to the fifth day they tried to sing it the same as the other days. Well this just wouldn't do. Those five golden rings are super special, I don't particularly know why nor do I care, but those kids needed to sing their hearts out for that day. So I sang it for them and told them that traditionally the fifth day is the loudest. The first couple of times they would look at each other for approval, seeing if everyone else would follow along. By eight maids a milking they had it down and by twelve drummers drumming I think my ears were bleeding. At nine ladies dancing we closed the door because the sound was echoing in the hallways. Oops. The boys made a competition out of it, yelling in each others' faces, I'm sure spit flying into their eyes and the girls sang at the top of their lungs and laughed. When we were all finished I imagined the teacher practicing with them the next day, unaware of the ear-piercing monster I had unleashed. Oh well, at least they know the song and can sing, right?
Oh Kinder!
