We've been practicing the question, "Who is our president?" A few of the kids picked it up after a week or two, but the others just recently started to consistently and correctly answer the question. Our big batch of library books this week are all about Obama. They're from the "juvenile" section rather than the kids section, so they're higher level books. The kids have still enjoyed them and looked through the pictures. One of the books is about Michelle Obama - and I've recently added the question, "Who is our first lady?" to our bag of tricks. The kids picked up on it very quickly! They are now answering both questions correctly!
We have also been focusing on "wh questions" (who, what, when, where). These are very challenging for my guys. It is not unheard of for one of them to respond "pizza" to "who did you see last night?" It is very common for them to only listen to part of the question (such as "last night") and impulsively answer the first thing that comes to their mind (such as, pizza). They are also so used to hearing the same questions over and over, that they start to just spit out answers in hopes that the one they impulsively give me will be the right one.
Today was a perfect example of mixing up questions and answers. Yes, we know our president. Yes, we know that when you answer a "who" question, you have to name a person.
This morning, I asked one of the boys one of our daily wh- questions, "Who did you eat dinner with last night?" He immediately and impulsively shouted, "Ba-racka O-bama." Man, am I proud of them for knowing that Barack Obama is our president. But, I highly doubt that he had dinner with the president. I smiled from ear to ear and bent over, "YOU ate dinner with BARACK OBAMA?" He looked me straight in the eye and giggled, saying, "yep." I replied with, "Boy, are you lucky! Who else was there?"
"Michelle Obama."
Gotta give the kid credit for making up a pretty funny story and all of the pieces fitting together. We all laughed and clapped, "He had dinner with the president and first lady!" Any time a visitor came into our room (which happens fairly frequently), I would tell him, "Tell Mrs. ___ who came to your house for dinner last night!" He would pull out his Barack Obama card from his notebook and point to it while laughing hysterically. The kids got a huge kick out of it and that was the "joke" for the rest of the day.
We might not be eating dinner with President Obama, but we can finally say his name. And now we know his wife's name too. How's that for achieving success?
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