In my role as an itinerant teacher, I sometimes found myself not needing to cover an absence for the day or part of the day. When this happened, there was a classroom support schedule that I followed which allowed me to be a part of several different classrooms within the school. This support role looked different in every classroom – sometimes it would be taking a student or small group to the library to work on skills, and other times it would be simply an extra set of eyes in the classroom.
One support experience that really stuck with me, however, was when I was supporting a particular student in one of the kindergarten classrooms. Educators learned early on that this student would require quite a bit of extra attention and thrive with one-on-one support. Over the course of the year, it became more and more difficult for him to integrate with the rest of the students and so a specific space was created within the classroom for him to go to as an option for when he was unable to be with the rest of his classmates. This was the student that I supported while in this classroom and I am proud of the relationship that I was able to create with him.
This student’s focus was difficult to keep attached to a task for a very long period of time – as is the case with many children at this age but seemed particularly so for this student. Therefore, we tried many activities to see which ones he was most interested in. It didn’t take long for us to realize that his interests were solely in one area: Minecraft. He would talk all day long about things related to Minecraft and often seemed to inhabit the Minecraft world in his daily activities.
Although I didn’t know anything about the game or culture myself, I knew that this could be our way in with this student. So began my search for anything related to Minecraft. The student was incredibly smart despite only being in JK and so I knew that he could handle more challenging activities – and would likely appreciate the challenge. This was how I came to create a google drive folder filled with Minecraft-related activities which I shared with the administrators in the building as well as his teacher. We printed some of them off, laminated them and I would complete these activities with the student when I was able to go and support the class.
I also went to our school library and signed out some books on Minecraft – he couldn’t read the words, or at least not all of them, but he could look at the pictures and was able to explain many of the things that were happening in them. I used this opportunity myself to learn more about Minecraft as I know it’s something many students are interested in!
In addition to having struggles in the classroom, he also began demonstrating difficulties while riding the bus to school. I was asked by our Vice Principal to put together a little pencil-and-paper activity book that he could do while on the bus. I even found some emergent readers that were Minecraft stories which I stapled into the front.
