Update on "when a cartwheel as a motivator fails"

At the start of a February I tried to use a cartwheel as a motivator with a child who didn't want to learn cursive handwriting. We have made progress and here are some scenes to update you on this situation. Plus an introduction to the owls in our classroom.

Scene 1

“Ouch my,” I say, getting up from an extended morning circle on the first day back from holidays, discussing current news and how we can take care of ourselves and others.

“See, this is why I don’t want you to do the cartwheel. Your bones and muscles, I don’t want you to get hurt,” S looks at me with a concerned face. 

 

Scene 2

“There’s no way we can have an ice-cream party in March. I was absent for so long, and then we were on distance learning and we had a spring break, I have so much more to practice,” S. says looking at his cursive sentences on a small individual whiteboard.

“April?” I ask.

“Yes,” he says and changes the date on the large classroom whiteboard - Ice-cream party to celebrate S's cursive handwriting on April 20th.

 

Scene 3:

“Here are the word study words for this week,” I point at the words on the round table. All other studetns are already sorting their words by categories.

“I can’t do these. I have to practice my cursive. You want the ice-cream party, right?” responds S. and brings a small individual white board and a marker to write another sentence and add this to his growing cursive writing whiteboard pile. He has decided to not write anything on the paper, and not to erase anything he has written so far on the boards, and he does not allow to take photos of his work. 

 

Scene 4:

"I can’t remember all the names of the owls. Would you please write them down for me,” I ask S, thinking of owls as the subject for my possible slice.

“You wish me to write in cursive, right?” S asks.

“Yes, sure,” I reply even though cursive was not my initial intention of the request.

 

Scene 5:

“I don’t know all my capital letters in cursive, yet. Can I write the names with small letters?” S asks, looking at a piece of paper and at the ten owls lined up in front of him. 

“Sure. Artist and poets sometimes write their names with small letters,” I answer.  

 

Scene 6:

Readers of this slice are wondering why we have owls in our classroom, what their names are and whether we’ll have an ice-crema party. 

I’ll gladly answer. We have ten owls because S brought eight owls to school one day for no particular reasons. The next day another student and I brought additional two. 

The names of the owls are (look at the first picture from right to left): Grandpa Jeff, Carl, Owl, Howl, Lowl, Prowl, Penguinowl, Legs, Carl Jim junior, Frowl. Yes, we value diversity, and accept the identity anyone has chosen, including penguins and flamingos who say they are owls. 

In addition to the owls we have a teddy bear called Leah, who loves honey, and a snow leopard called Leo, who loves oranges, in our class. The last two have been with us from the start of the school year and have their personal name rocks for morning circle greetings and questions. 

 

Yes, one day, when S is ready, and he says when he is ready, we will have an ice-cream party.