Bev Bos

 Wow!  It has been a long time since I have done a blog post.  So much has happened since I last posted here.   I will just put a little update on here as to WHY I have been MIA.

1.  In January of 2017, I found out that I had breast cancer and fought hard and can now call myself a 5 year cancer survivor. 

2.  I taught kindergarten during a pandemic!  I NEVER in my wildest dreams, thought I would teach kindergarten, online.  How crazy!

3.  I had a son graduate during the pandemic.  This one was tough.  When fighting cancer, I was told to make goals.  One of my goals was to see both of my boys graduate.  I wanted to see them walk across the stage and get their high school diploma.  That did not happen with my son and I was devastated.   

4.  My son moved to Colorado.  I got to be with him several times while he was out there.  I even got to teach my kindergarteners online while I was in Colorado with my son.

5.  I always said that I would NEVER get a puppy and IF we did, it would be a small one, meet Rocky and Laika.  They are the sweetest labs ever!!!  I could not imagine life without them in it.

6.  My youngest son graduated. I got to see him walk across the stage and receive his diploma.

And finally, remember I said I was a 5 year survivor?  I had wanted to take classes to make my lane changes for years.  I kept putting it off because in my mind, I kept thinking, what if I don't survive?  What if I sign up for classes and then die?  I would have wasted all that money and time for nothing.  I know it's probably an irrational thought, but that's where I was.  Well, on August 2nd, I got to celebrate being a survivor.  I signed up for 5 classes....which is what brings me to this post.  

I am taking the class, Move, Grow, Play! Using Play to Teach and Learn.  I have learned so much about the importance of PLAY in the classroom.  I have always thought this was important, but I now have the words and the reasoning to explain why.  

I wanted to share information that I have learned about Bev Bos.  Bev's philosophy is that children learn through play, interaction, problem solving, exploration and discovery.  Kids learn not by being competitive but by cooperating with one another.  She believed that reading and writing could only happen after self-discovery, problem solving, interaction, exploration and play occur.  She believed that children learn best when they can set their own goals and make their own choices.

Bev was born on October 6th, 1934 and she passed away on February 4, 2016.  When Bev was born, she was born early and had a twin brother.  It was expected that she wouldn't survive.  She grew up in a poor family, not making much money but,  they were rich with storytelling and singing.  She had 8 siblings.  They would often go on rides together in the car to sing. Bev was married and had 5 children. 

Bev was a 50 year advocate of learning through experience particularly play  She believed that if it has not been in their hand or body/heart it cannot be in their brain.  She spent 50 years at Roseville Community Preschool.  Bev worked really hard to find out about what kids needed.  She wasn't interested in going to college.  She liked the kids too much.  Bev has done over 6000 presentations around the world.  She created a vibrant, colorful place for students to learn.

Bev believed that no child is expected to be like any other child.  She never expected kids to sit in circles.  She believe it was not natural for kids to sit in a circle.  Some of the first things she did differently was that she didn't expect kids to be at the same place at the same time.  No child would be required to be doing what everyone else was done.  She believed that art was not supposed to be color by number.  Art is not comparing kids to one another.  Its giving kids crayons and paints and allowing them to paint. She believed that art was whatever students wanted to use to leave their mark.

Bev did not force things on children.  She believed that the brain is always telling kids what they need to do.  If they didn't want to sit in a circle to listen to a story, she didn't force them to do it.

Bev was a passionate advocate of child centered, developmentally appropriate play based programs for young children. Bev believed that early childhood education should focus on play.  All the conditions for human growth are in play.  Belonging...how do you belong?  Children need lots of experiences before they attach words to things.  Kids have to have to have 100's of experiences to be able to feel and write about things.

I believe in so many of the things that Bev believed in.  Kids have to have background knowledge and experiences before they can read and write stories.  If kids don't have lots of background experiences where are they supposed to come up with their ideas for writing stories of things that have happened in the past?  Her philosophy is so important for children and learning because it allows kids to play and learn about the world around them.  They are able to develop the foundational skills that they will need later.

I think play is starting to be looked at again in schools today.  We still are pushing young kids quickly to do things that they may not be ready for.  Conversations are starting to happen more often. I will give the students that I work with more opportunities to play and to let them explore the world around them.  What does play look like in your classroom?  How do you allow your children to build the foundational skills that they need to have?

Operation Day aka Vowel Surgery

I can't even begin to tell you how much fun Operation Day was in our classroom.  I saw this blog post by Kickin' It In Kindergarten and immediately bought her Vowel Surgery pack.  I started thinking of how I wanted to implement it in my classroom and decided we were going to do it on our "O Day" for our A-Z Countdown to Summer.  I created a bunch more centers to go along with her unit because I wanted to have some more options of things to do.  My kids had soooo much fun and several asked, "Can we do this again tomorrow?"  I was exhausted.  I was so worth all the work for this day.


To start off, all my kids came in and they got scrubbed in and dressed for surgery.

We watched a short video about what doctors do during surgeries.


We had our headlamps on too.  We wanted to be able to see what we were doing.


We started off by using Seesaw and we recorded what the job of a surgeon is.  We had to state 3 things that surgeons do.


We had several centers that we had to rotate to.  At this center, we played Operation.





Each station had blood bags at them.  These were filled with red food coloring and water.  I did run out of food coloring so we had to use red Kool-Aid.

I had Bio-Hazard boxes at some of the stations.

This was the Vowel Surgery Station that I got from Kickin' It In Kindergarten.  I had cookie trays at the table with tweezers.

Kids had to put the missing vowels in the word cards.

I had a waiting room set up.  In the waiting room kids had to read the eye charts.  The eye chart had sight words in it.






In the waiting room, there were baby dolls aka:  The Patients.  Each patient had a chart with them that listed all their ailments on it.  The doctors had to read their patients charts and give them a diagnosis.  They had to take a picture of the chart with the Seesaw app and then touch the record button and read it and say their diagnosis.  There was also a book area to read books while waiting for the doctors to get done.




























I had a bunch of supplies out for them to use on their patients.

Click here to hear a doctor giving a diagnosis after reviewing their patients chart.

At the station below, kids used the our light table to view some x-rays.  They had to put the bones together to form a skeleton.

In this station, the doctors used microscopes to view different viruses.













Here the doctors were making books in Book Creator.  They found band-aids around the classroom that had sight words on them.  They had to take a picture of the band-aids and then make a book out of the words.  They recorded themselves reading the words.









I had a parent donate some pill bottles to our class.  When of our end of the year assessments was sorting.  I put a bunch of different shaped on pills and had the kids sort the pills with similar shapes into pill bottles.






















I loved this center.  The doctors were working on their fine motor skills when they were fixing the babies.  I got a bunch of babies from The Dollar Tree and cut them.  Some had cuts on their arms, legs, foreheads, sides, etc.  The doctors had to use a needle and string and had to stitch them up.  I had gauze and band-aides here too,













At this center doctors were counting out viruses to put in the vials.  The vials had a number on them.  The doctors had to use a tweezers and put the matching amount of pills in the vials.




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Finally to end our day, we made treats with syringes that had frosting in them.  We used Twizzlers and made them look like a Red Cross sign.















This was an amazing day.  I was able to step back and watch my kids have so much fun while using skills that we learned throughout the year.  They were socializing with one another, using problem solving skills, using technology, reading, counting, sorting all while having fun!  I have Kickin' It In Kindergarten to thank for this awesome day!