At Field Elementary, teacher June Kiesel used her PEF Teacher Grant to build a library of hands-on folder games that turned everyday classroom routines into chances for play and practice. The folder games, small board games and activities that can conveniently fold up for storage, covered a wide range of skills including phonological awareness, vocabulary development, number operations, geometry, and measurement. These games gave Kiesel’s DLIP Mandarin kindergartners tools to reinforce their literacy and math skills during workshop rotations, small group instruction, and independent center time.
For Kiesel’s students in the Mandarin Immersion Program, the materials did double duty: strengthening English language development while also supporting the unique ways that each student learns by turning learning into a game. The kindergartners adored this format of learning through games, with many of them asking to play the games over and over. They would set up the folder games themselves, growing more independent during classroom activity rotations by working through them with little need for teacher support. Kiesel was thrilled by how fast her students took the initiative of their independent learning time with the help of the folder games, studying the rules of each game and playing with each other, growing exponentially in their ability and enthusiasm to learn and think for themselves.
