Smudging on the chalkboard…
“ A ‘q’! I did an ‘h’ and a ‘q’! “a boy from the Pre-Primary classroom raced across the room, chalk in hand. He grabbed a teacher’s hand and tugged her towards his work, his eyes sparkling with excitement and pride. He was actively working on writing his name and had moved on to writing an array of letters from the alphabet chart that accompanied the chalkboard work. The teacher smiled and caught his hand and gently placed it on her arm. She continued the conversation with another child. A few moments later the teacher excused herself from the conversation and walked over to observe the young boy’s letters.
He sat down and immediately began to write a new letter. As he worked from left to right, he would lean on his left almost like he was holding down a piece of paper. This would smudge the letters he had written previously. After a few attempts to organize his body to avoid smudging his earlier work, he sat up very straight, placed his left hand at the base of the chalkboard and gripped his piece of chalk. The teacher quietly moved on, leaving him to continue his work.
