The 4-second Learning Opportunity from Kidspired Creations

My Go-To Girl, Casey (with Kidspired Creations), shared another teaching treasure with us and I get to glean from it too 🙂

Great learning opportunities do not have to be completely planned out nor do they necessarily have to require much time at all. They do not have to come at a certain time of the day and do not always have to be over-the-moon exciting. Great learning opportunities DO need to have a goal in mind and this one, in particular, needs to be routine.

I give you the every-time-we-leave-the-house-4-second-learning-opportunity…

My kindergartner came home with his first day of homework. He had to trace the word RED three times, color the picture red, and do a word search where he had to find the word 4 times. After, I asked him how to spell RED without looking at his paper… r-e-d. Perfect.

The next day he came home with his homework for the color BLUE. After completing the same tasks as he did with the color red, I asked him to spell BLUE, but he couldn’t remember.

Then I remembered a teaching trick I used to get something to stick in my Pre-K and Kindergartners’ heads: repetition. How can I guarantee that I remember to enforce this repetition? Through practiced routine. And what better routine is there in a classroom than how to enter and exit the classroom? It is, in fact, the most rehearsed and the most repetitive… going in and out and in and out all day long.

I always had a sight word of the week (Kinder) or letter/number of the week (Pre-K) posted on the door frame and any time a student entered or exited the classroom they first had to hit the door frame and say (and spell) the word/letter.

For your beginning reader…

“B-l-u-e! Blue Blue Blue!”

or for your 1-3 year old…

“Big A, little a, /a/ /a/ /a/!”

You can even have just a colored piece of paper and use this repetition to teach colors. Or math facts…

“2 x 3 = 6!”

Or Bible verses! Or pictures of animals for toddlers! The learning opportunities are endless! Keep your one word/letter/color/number on the door for the entire week and any time you and your child leave, make sure to hit it on the way out! Be careful, though, it’s super easy to just remember the SOUND of this repetitive activity without looking at the actual word/letter, so make sure your child is also LOOKING at the card on the door frame to also remember its visual representation as well.