Kindergarten: It's All About Those Ears

Students were asked to listen then draw what was instructed in this experiment with teacher directed versus choice based lesson. Students have learned several lines, been introduced to shapes and have gone over warm and cool colors. On each table were warm and cool crayons and colored pencils, the guidelines were to listen to my directions then draw what they heard. Ex: "With a warm colored crayon draw a small triangle on the left side of the page." This is a good example of teacher directed versus student choice; "With any cool or warm colored crayon or pencil, draw your favorite shape at any size anywhere on the page." Students learned to listen and had to pace themselves and not rush to draw what they wanted. For me this was interesting to see the difference between strict guidelines and lose guidelines and how well they understood page locations. Students were nervous at first then gradually became more confident with their choices.