As a Quaker School, peace is a core value which is woven throughout our curriculum. During our Morning Meeting today we read, "Can You Say Peace?" by Karen Katz. The book shows how children from around the world say "peace" in different languages. Later on in the morning we read, "The Peace Book" by Todd Parr. We realized that peace can mean different things to different people, and we shared our ideas about what peace means to us. Then the children got excited to make our own kindergarten Peace Book. We provided them with pages for the book with the words, "Peace is..." already written on them. The students then wrote the rest of the sentence with their own idea of what peace is to them. In kindergarten we encourage the children to stretch out the sounds in the words that they want to write. By isolating the sounds, they are better able to identify the corresponding letters to those sounds. We allow them to incorrectly form and identify letters as they write. We understand that learning to write is a process, and it is important for the students to feel successful as they learn. So we strike a balance between giving them the right answers, and letting them make mistakes. This results in what we call "developmental spelling", or "kid writing". Sometimes we add "book writing" which is conventional spelling the way it would appear in a book. By gradually scaffolding the writing skills of each child as they write, the students develop a positive attitude towards the writing process. They happily engage in our classroom writing activities without feeling overwhelmed.
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