Friday, October 14, 2011
Befuddled with ABC order
Her is my problem: my students are required to get into abc order (by last name) for lunch and we have to do this on the playground due to coming into lunch from recess. Now we have never had a problem before, but this year abc order seems to elude MANY of my students! My assistant (she is the one that is with them at recess and brings them in for lunch) is beside herself with trying and trying to get all 26 of our little active 5 year olds into a line that somewhat resembles our abc order list. I will say that my class is a very young class and we seem to be very immature this year. I know I know, as I type this I realize that using the word immature seems silly - I mean they are only 5 YEARS OLD for goodness sake, but by comparison from years past and to the other 3 classrooms, my class seems to be wondering the playground with a confused look on their faces when we ask them to get into abc order or for that matter other tasks as well. We have practiced and practice to no avail. Does anyone out there in blogger town have any advice before a teacher and an assistant pull out all of our hair!!!!! We need HELP!
Break them into groups of 5 (6) and have those groups get into order. If you name those groups by number, then you can call them by number order. It won't take them long to get it if they only have 5 (6) to order. One year I had 31, 19 boys and 12 girls, and we had to line them up in alpha order. So thankful we don't do that anymore! Hang in there! Hopefully they'll get the hang of it soon!
ReplyDeleteJill
Colormehappyinkindergarten.blogspot.com
Mrs. Egley,
ReplyDeleteThis won't be a one day fix, but it will give you a tool! At the beginning of the year before I ever do the alphabet chart on a daily basis, we do a class name chart. We do it in a sing-songy way and within two weeks they have it memorized. Now that we are beyond using it, it serves as a list for reference hanging in our classroom. I think that perhaps that might be a solution for you.
The other day our librarian was just calling a few to come get in line, and it just so happened that the way she called the first student was enough to start the entire class off singing the song on their own. She was amazed! I would assume that you or your assistant might be able to sing it long enough to help them learn it, use it to get in line and then eventually they can use it to check where they go in line if needed. A very tricky thing you have here. Here is a link of singing a sample version for 24 names.
http://bit.ly/uXwHc3
- Leslie
KindergartenWorks