Teachable moments

This past Friday God gave me yet another teachable moment. When I got to school a tree had fallen on the powerlines and the building had no power. All the students had to gather in the cafeteria while administration determined what to do. We soon discovered that some classrooms had lights so students gathered in those rooms. Within 45 minutes of school opening we had power restored and were able to carry on normally. I decided to seize the moment and have the students write about the experience. They wrote a descriptive piece about the day we had no power. We focused on using synonyms. Overall they did a wonderful job capturing how they felt when they got to school and discovered that we had no power. I was so proud of my little kiddos for using words like frightened, dim, and enjoyable. Just as with the cause and effect lesson we did a few weeks ago, the students understood better because they had a real life experience to help them. In my opinion, these are the types of lessons that students will never forget.