Using Kindergarten Materials in the Classroom

Abstract

5WX THEN visiting a kindergarten one sees children at work with scissors cutting paper, busy with blocks or modelling clay, or perhaps playing in a sand box. With these materials the child may fashion objects that he has seen, thus exercising his creative ability. Later, with suggestions from the teacher and a greater knowledge gained from the story hour, he may model a miniature Indian village. The aim of the kindergarten teacher is to use as many of the child's senses as possible, attempting to deepen the paths made by the mental process so that the child may have a mind picture so vivid that he will remember the facts taught without difficulty. The kindergarten teacher does not monopolize this aim. It should be used by every instructor of nursing and especially in our field since we are blessed with a great variety of illustrative material. Everyone is familiar with the usual materials. We have models, pictures, manikins, fresh specimens, preserved specimens, skeletons, and charts. Each of these may help us, as teachers, to realize that aim if we have such equipment, but even in the largest schools only a portion is obtainable. As a substitute for these, or as a valuable aid to teachers who are fortunate enough to have them, plasticine may be used to advantage. Many wrong impressions have been cleared up by its use, or better still, correct impressions have been formulated at the beginning. For example, in studying a textbook cell, students often receive the idea that a cell is flat, with little or no thickness. The illustrative materials commonly used, drawings and microscopic slides,