Silent Elephant “e”™-ing is FUN!
The more I teach with Silent Elephant “e”™ the more I’m beginning to feel like Silent Elephant “e”™ is a verb. 😂
I know that sounds a little crazy, but it’s true, the more I teach with Silent Elephant “e”™, the more I feel like I’m Silent Elephant “e”™-ing. 😂😂
Let me give you a little background to where this happy, but little bit goofy, feeling is coming from.
“Learn – to learn” is a verb, an action word.
This means learning is an active process.
To learn, action must be happening.
It’s true that part of the activity or action of learning is happening in the brain unseen, but for our brain to engage in the process of learning, our senses must get involved.
Let’s look at this.
Obviously, our senses of sight and hearing are a major part of learning to read, write and spell, but actually our other senses of touch, taste and smell all have a part in our learning process. Furthermore, when ALL our senses, and movement, get involved, learning happens faster, is deeper and is more easily transferred into other concepts and subjects.
There’s just added power when we involve the whole-child/whole-person, all our senses, in the learning process.
Now, let’s go visit that sweet young man Xander again. (See last email HERE)
As you will remember, I shared Xander’s interaction with Silent Elephant “e”™’s Phonemic Awareness Caterpillar Game that uses color and movement to identify sounds in words. There was a moment when Xander had such a firm grasp on identifying individual sounds in spoken words that he transferred his knowledge into a new way of showing his comprehension.
Remember how he jumped up and shot off to bring his toy cars in on the learning. He had mentally processed, comprehended, that individual sounds make up our words and that in this game, the sounds could be represented by colored squares, or toy cars, but it didn’t change the individual sounds in the word.
Let’s look at what Xander was doing, how he was active and interacting with his knowledge, and how his senses were involved to activate his brain. Xander was:
using his sense of hearing as he listened intently to each sound his mom said.
using his sense of sight as he watched his mom’s mouth move as she said each sound.
using his sense of hearing as he carefully listened to his own voice saying and identifying each sound he heard.
using his sense of touch, and movement, as he slid his colored squares in place to indicate the sounds he heard, and
using his senses of sight and hearing to decide that his game board was correct, whether his answers were indicated with colored squares or toy cars.
True, he didn’t use his senses of smell or taste in Silent Elephant “e”™’s Phonemic Awareness Caterpillar Game, but these two senses are also integrated throughout Silent Elephant “e”™. True deep learning that transfers easily and swiftly into other concepts and subjects involves ALL the senses; It involves the whole learner.
Now do you see why I giggle to myself when I find myself thinking that I am Silent Elephant “e”™ -ing as I sit down at the computer to meet one of my students? Every one of the lessons in Silent Elephant “e”™ is centered around the whole-child in front of me and how they learn.
Furthermore, Silent Elephant ”e”™-ing is just plain FUN! Cont
Gentle reminder - 25% off on Silent Elephant ”e”™ Parts 1-14, click HERE.
Contact us at:
Linda Katherine Smith-Jones 208-859-4406 Nina Henson 208-860-3125