We travel in kindergarten. We walk across the school building and down the stairs to gym, to the cafeteria, and to the auditorium. We climb up two flights to the library. We cross the street to get to the playground. We travel. In the beginning of the year we read Swimmy by Leo Lionni. One little fish, Swimmy, helps all the other small fish stay safe by teaching them how to travel together. We try to stay together, all 25 of us and we try to take care of our line partners. Before moving from the playground back to school, I call out, "partner check". Everyone (in a perfect world) holds their partner's hand and raises those arms with clasped hands to show me that we are all accounted for. In the beginning, I selected line partners. Last week I asked the children to write down 10 names of children they would like to partner with. Boys had to include at least 3 girls and girls had to include at least 3 boys. If they did not know how to spell a name, they either asked the person or found the name around the room.
P.S. We'll have new line partners this week.
This is what it looks like in a kindergarten classroom when there is a fine reason to write. P.S. We'll have new line partners this week.