Writing Practice with Sand.

Today I introduced the Professors to a new method of writing practice, writing in sand. Since we have finished up with phase one of our English language sandpaper letters, Alhumdullilah, writing practice is the next step. Sorry guys! ; )

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Activity Set up

I tried to think what would be the most logical way to set this up so everyone could be busy without distracting me from working with one person at a time. 

The two circular pans were for the two Professors who were not working with me directly. The larger pan was for me, and the other student.

 I set the two Professors, who were not working with me, up with one sandpaper letter each to trace in their pans. They were also close enough to the bin, that they could freely grab more letters to trace if they wanted. I chose the letters A, B and C to teach with.

I tried not to be too ridged this session, an viewed it more of as exploration of the materials, with a small introductory lesson. 

Getting Started

Alot of this took place for a time, which I was ok with. 

After a few minutes it was time to focus and get started on our first letter, A. I worked with Professor #2 first. As in the video, I had him trace the sandpaper letter first, and make the letter sound. I then held up the letter next to the pan so he could see it, and asked him to trace it in the sand. Let me say also, I did not give any guidance on the correct way to place his hands in the sand, or write the letter. I wanted to see what track their minds took. I could see already from the way each of them traced the letters, they were all over the place, which is natural, and normal, one of the things we will perfect over time, insha' Allah. Here are some of Professor #2's A's, B's, and C's in the sand. We did each a minimum of three times.

As you can see from the pictures, he wrote most of the letters sideways, or curled way up at the top, but he got the basic form, Masha' Allah. 

Here are Professor #1's A, B, C's in the sand. He did not like me photographing his lesson at all, and became very withdrawn and unfocused. I assured him, I need it for your school records, but did my best to keep it to a minimum. 

Masha' Allah, as you can see from the pictures, his letters are much larger, and more centered. He was also the first one to emerge with representational drawing. (Wasn't I supposed to do a post on that?)

Professor #3 was busy playing away in his sand pan. He did humor me and make an H, even though that was not the letter I gave him. I asked him to come over to the teachers side and try to draw the A, B, C letters, just seeing if he would or not. He was pleased as punch to come over, but we didn't get very far. One of the things he loves to do with the sandpaper letters is file, organize, and rearrange them. He'd probably do this most of the day if I let him, and its what he does most of the time they're out. Here's what we accomplished, Masha' Allah.

After the lessons were over the Professors really wanted to keep playing in the sand pans. Professor #1 asked me if it was Summer time yet. To his disappointment was not. They had an enjoyable time playing with some small toys in the sand, and Professor #3 spent a large amount of time scooping and pouring. I canceled story time today to allow more sand play.  Masha' Allah our introduction went well. Next week we will get more serious with this, forming and centering our letters properly, and I'm hoping to include this in our lessons once a week, insha' Allah.

That's it for us this week. Have a great weekend, see everyone back on Monday insha' Allah : )