11/10/2012 · por Lorena Gutierrez · Tags: Programa Bilíngue

"Experience is a truer guide than the words of others.," according to a wise man.

We have been busily applying these words into practice in the last few months. Aspiring to the thought that our understanding of things deepens when we learn through experience and beyond simple words.
And so in the Infantil II Bilingual Program, we have been experiencing the world of language acquisition through arts and crafts, theater, literature, music, and science. Let´s take a look at what the children have been up to.

Kandisnky in the Classroom

We copied this famous painter's style by doing some finger painting. Forget the brush, it was a lot more fun to dip our fingers in the slippery paint and feel our fingers glide on the surface of the paper. First, we painted black lines then we painted with primary colors. It is so much more fun to get a little bit messy!

This semester we have made duck hats for our new project about animals. We had to glue down the features of the duck on a paper hat then the fun part, we got to put the hat on our heads! We enjoyed singing 5 Little Ducks when we walked down to the duck pond, wearing the duck hats we made.There we looked at where ducks lived, what they did, and talked about ducks with our teacher. We learned new words like egg, feathers, duck tail, and beak.

Do you know that the Big Bad Wolf fell into a big pot of soup at the end of the story? How about the story of Little Red Riding Hood, do you remember that the wolf dressed in grandma's pajamas then laid in bed waiting? Meanwhile the 5 Little Monkeys were eaten by the alligator, unfortunately. And all of these stories came to life when it was showtime at our little theater!

Mother Goose's nursery rhymes become more interesting and exciting when we reenact the scenes. We watched Humpty Dumpty fall off the wall and yes, it was a real egg! The other day some of us pretended to be Little Miss Muffet and others the Spider and what a surprise when a big, big spider showed up to our class. But unlike Ms. Muffet we weren't frightened.

Super Science Days is something we started recently. On these days we see how science can be loads of fun. Experimenting and experiencing the natural world through our eyes, nose, ears, mouth, and hands. Our first experiment is called "Fireworks in a Jar" and we got to see an explosion of colors in a jar. Why? Because oil and water don't mix! We were left wanting more and we're definitely looking forward to our next experiment.

According to a wise man, "Experience is a truer guide than the words of others."

As teachers we spend a lot of time talking at our students, not realizing that our words become more powerful and effective when we allow our students to experience for themselves what we are talking about. What do I mean by that? I've had numerous effective teachers in the past. Ms.Lederer who insisted that we dressed up and personify historical figures at a special dinner at her house. I studied everything about Catherine the Great for that dinner. There was Mr. Le Cuyer who not only had us reading Shakespearean poetry but writing our own work for a book that was later published. Then there was Mr. Richards who taught math and made geometry interesting by giving lunch time Origami classes.

These teachers made learning what was in the books come to life! So much that even now, decades later they still come to mind when I think of inspiring educators. I aspire to some day be like these educators, while keeping in mind the words of that wise man, a wise man named Leonardo da Vinci.