As I work with students, using plastocene to make letters and words and sculptures to represent, I fascinated, still, by how they go about their tasks.   The interplay of "life`s events" amongst some of them, underscores their learning.   Some have great oral skills and verbalise why they do what they do and how they are learning.   Isn`t this great?   I`ve got to say, it is such a refreshing and exciting experience, to be part of the learning package.   I can never underestimate the innate interest and developing ability of students, their trust in me and their open-ness to embrace what is happening for them.   The letters, made from plastocene, demonstrate underpinning challenges for some of the students, with mixed letter shapes (upper and lower all in together, reversals and up-side-downs).   However, working through these, with the students, you can assist them with sorting these old learnings to demonstrate how they can master it all, with some tools of thinking.

The trigger words, are different.   The learner devises an image for words such as, a, the, am, at to name a few.   The difficulty for a lot of learners is the lack of visual attachment for such words.   Nouns have an associated visual link, however other parts of speech don`t, so the learner creates one.   There are many trigger words and we are not surprised to find them in the all of the early sight words we hope they will learn and recall quickly.   Not so for some.   Some of the sculptures are masterpieces and the students want to put so much detail into them, however, I have cajoled and co-erced them into compromising - one work of art and the others are basic.   I`ll pop some on this blog to show you how they are going.