Wednesday morning at Auxilium Primary School, Aldona. This will be the first time I am doing a class here.
The book we’re reading today is Little Fingers. This colourfully illustrated book delightfully shows the unique features of each finger and the many things that we use our hands for.
The moments I enter the class, there’s excitement. I wonder why….these kids have no clue what I’m here for. It wasn’t until I heard a child in the class say ‘story’ that I realised that they had put together that a person with a big book who enters the class must be there to tell a story!
This was a good start. I was already happy. We started with them singing a song. They chose Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star; and as they sang, little fingers did the actions.
We began discussion what it is that we use our hands for. All the 2nd graders were excited to be giving answers. “To comb our hair!” ” To eat!” “To hold the phone!” “To hold a pencil!” “To write!” “To turn the pages in a book!”……the list went on!
As we moved into the Read aloud part of the session, the kids were followed the book page by page and did the actions as were presented in the book. It thrilled them every time they saw something that they had already mentioned.
It has always been said that no two hands are the same, and no 2 fingers have the same print. Just as, no 2 children are the same. When it was time for the extension activity, all the kids had to start with drawing an outline of their hand that they then coloured in. And true enough, no 2 hands looked the same. There were those that had coloured the entire hand one colour, there were some that had multicolored hands, some had only the fingers painted, some had the palms one colour, and the fingers another.
In talking to to the kids, it became clear that each of them have their own preferences and choices of books. They showed me these as they filed back into class super excited with their book for the week. Some of them told me what the book was about, some of them told me why they’d picked a particular book. Some of them told me about the books they ‘d already read and liked. They recalled things from books that were read to them with little minute details.
Many little fingers….and all of them like turning pages.
As I left that class, those little fingers waved bye-bye.
