Prior knowledge

It's been raining for the past few days. The kids and I have done a lot of playing indoors. Yesterday I helped them build a fort in their bedroom. It was fun.

It was even more fun to overhear the kids playing as I sorted through their summer and winter clothes.

Claire acted out Little House on the Prairie (books we've read together), the story in the Bible when Herod decided to kill all the baby boys (she and David had to run away from the giant so that her babies wouldn't get killed..there seems to be some confusion between the David and Goliath story and the Herod story), music class (she goes to music class once a week and led me, as "Mary" through one of the activities she does there), and preschool show and tell (she asked me the kinds of questions that her teacher asks her when she does show and tell).

In the education field, we talk a lot about students' prior knowledge and the importance of tapping into what they know and experience. Claire's collage of stories and experiences, all acted out in a 1 hour of rainy day play, reminds me of how complex and multifaceted kids/students are, and, of what an impossible job that teachers, and parents, have.