10 4-year-olds, 10 Minutes, One Great Learning Experience
On an otherwise normal Friday morning in a class for 4-year-olds at Central Elementary School, students are excited about a mystery. Ten young students sit in a circle on a rug. Behind teacher Alisha Sackett is a large sheet of yellow paper taped to shelves, but what’s behind that paper is unknown to students.
Sackett is about to begin what is known as "guided discovery" with the students. Within 10 minutes, students will not only see what is behind the yellow paper, but will also learn new words, engage in important pre-reading exercises, learn how to be safe and learn how to take care of classroom materials. For students, the 10-minute lesson will allow them to practice in skills that will help them learn every day the rest of the school year. For Sackett, the 10-minute activity will help her find out more about what her students know and what they will need to focus on in upcoming days, weeks and months of school.
Not a bad 10 minutes.
If one hasn’t been around a 4-year-old lately, it’s easy to forget how young they are. The toddler can still be seen in them. They have round faces and rosy cheeks, and are easily distracted by such things as their own arms swinging back and forth or what the child next to them just said or did.
The distractability of 4-year-olds is one reason why yellow paper covers the shelves. The mystery intrigues children and focuses their attention. Children want to know what’s behind the yellow paper just as much as they would want to know what’s inside a gift-wrapped birthday present.
Minutes 0-1
Sackett begins the guided discovery by giving clues about what could be behind the paper, and students pepper her with guesses. It’s exciting.
Shortly, Sackett removes the paper to reveal shelves full of blocks. Except it’s not just shelves with blocks. It’s shelves with blocks! Interesting, fascinating, special blocks!
Minutes 1-2
With students zeroed in on the interesting blocks, first comes a lesson in vocabulary – specifically, words that describe shapes and materials and the characteristics shapes and materials might possess.
"What do you notice about the blocks?" Sackett asks to get students started.
Students quickly discover that blocks are made of wood. They learn wooden blocks are hard, not soft. They learn blocks are smooth, not rough. They learn some blocks are heavy and some are light. They learn some blocks are small and some are big, and that some blocks are even bigger than big ones. They learn geometric terms for block shapes such as squares, rectangles and triangles. Several of the words they repeat aloud as a group.
Minutes 2 - 6
Now it’s time to practice skills that will later help students with reading.
"What can you do with blocks?" Sackett asks.
"Build with them?" a young student offers. Sackett agrees, and then gives students a chance to build. Blocks are handed out, and students begin to stack them in whatever ways intrigue them. A couple of minutes later, students are each asked what they built. Answers include a horse, a turtle, a door, a rocket, a house and a car.
Of course, blocks are not actually a horse, rocket or car anymore than the written letter "S" actually makes the sizzling or hissing sound we associate with it. When children create block structures as a symbol for a horse or a rocket, they are preparing themselves to understand that a specific letter shape symbolizes a certain sound. Without that skill, reading would not be possible.
Minutes 6 - 8
Now comes the lesson in safety. It’s an important lesson. Simply out of human kindness, no one wants to see a child feel pain or cry – possible results if someone has done something unsafe. What’s more, if a student is hurt in class, learning stops to deal with the student’s physical and emotional hurts. Depending on what caused the injury, additional time may be spent correcting behavior that led to the injury. Safety is a good thing.
"What would happen if I built a tower of blocks, but then just swept my arm across the tower and knocked them all down on poor Braden?" Sackett asks her students.
"He’d be hurt!" Hannah says.
"You’d be in timeout!" Nathaniel says.
"He would be hurt! You’re right!" Sackett says, deftly sidestepping the suggestion that maybe the teacher should be put in timeout.
"Would you want a heavy block to fall on your head?" she asks the group.
"Noooooo," the students answer together.
"Would it feel good to be hit by blocks?" Sackett asks.
"Nooooo," the students sing out.
To prevent such tragedies from occurring, Sackett teaches students about "unbuilding." Unbuilding means taking down a structure of blocks one block at a time rather than knocking them down.
Minutes 8-10
"Criss cross applesauce," Sackett says, and fidgety students recross their legs and focus their attention.
Now it’s time to learn more about taking care of classroom materials.
"Where do blocks go?" Sackett asks.
Students point to the shelves. Sackett asks one student to put a block on a shelf. With the process modeled, she asks the other students to bring their blocks to the shelf and put them away. It’s not a quick task for 10 young students to gather blocks and maneuver past each other to place them on the shelves, but it gets done. And with that, the guided discovery is over.
About Guided Discovery
Guided discovery is not just a technique to teach students about blocks. The same technique is used to introduce students at Central Elementary School to scissors, markers, paper, pencils, crayons, areas of a classroom and more. The process generates excitement about materials or areas and gives young students a chance to explore, be creative, be active and ask questions. Norms for the use of classroom materials are established, and students learn to care for the materials so they will be in good condition to be used all year long.
"Guided discovery helps students be interested in and excited about classroom materials. They get to use their imagination and share things they have created, two aspects that are rewarding for students of any age. Guided discovery accomplishes a lot of different things, but it boils down to just four words: it helps students learn," Sackett says.