The Girl With the Brown Crayon- Tuesday Experience

Before reading this book I never would have imagined that Kindergartners would be able to start and hold a conversation with such insight and detail. I thought it was very interesting that Reeny’s Grandmother Ettie comes into the classroom to tell them a story and that she is so orientated with the children because she herself was a teacher. I find that in my Tuesday experience classroom, the teacher I am working with has parent volunteers come into the room, but they do not get the opportunity to read to the class, or tell them stories. Instead, she has them grading papers for her or working one on one with student’s who need help. While reading this story though I find that it would be a great experience for the children to have another adult figure reading and telling them stories. I believe that by having another adult read them stories or talk to the class they can come up with different points and opinions to share because their view could be very different from your view. This does have its good and bad qualities but I believe that for the most part it would be beneficial and exciting for a child to have someone they know come in and read a story. I also like how she had her Grandmother come in on her birthday. This made Reeny feel extra special because she got to share a part of her life with the class.

I also found it interesting that Reeny chose Swimmy to be her birthday book. In the book it states why her grandmother thinks she chose that book. It does not surprise me though that Renny chooses a Leo Lionni book. As you can tell throughout the whole book, she loves listening to his books and has a lot of very knowledgeable insight for her age. The more and more I read this book the more I am getting a feel for what the structure of a classroom conversation should be. It seems like everyone is involved in the discussion on the books which is something that can be very hard to manage in a classroom setting. Overall, I feel that this is a great resource because it lets you see how to integrate everyone in the classroom into a lesson.

I am really enjoying Tuesday experience. I am learning so much from my first grade teacher it is amazing! It is very interesting to compare some of her methods of teaching with the way that Paley teaches her class. It is so useful to be able to learn about all these different types of methods for teaching your class because one method may work for a class you have one year but then another year you may have to use a different method. I am having a great time and the children seem to really like having someone else new in the room. It has been a great experience so far and I hope that over the course of the semester I can learn and grow into becoming a more educated professional.