The Lion and The Mouse

We recently read The Lion and The Mouse by Jerry Pinkney.  The children enjoyed seeing some of the original paintings at the Art Museum.  The author intentionally left the words out of the book.  As we turned the pages, many of the children contributed ideas about what was happening in the story.  We had opportunities to explore the setting, the characters, and the plot of the story.  It was interesting to observe the children as they noticed many details in the illustrations.  The Language Arts include reading, writing, listening, and speaking.  Looking at pictures in a book is part of reading.  When reading picture books to your child, it can benefit their development to ask them questions.  Open ended questions provide a better springboard for developing critical thinking skills.

One could ask, "Why is the mouse running away?"
Child: "Because the owl is chasing it."

In this example, there is a clear answer to the question.  Open ended questions that might inspire deeper levels of thought are,
"What do you notice about this picture?"
"What do you think might happen next?"
"How are the characters feeling?"

Try some open ended questions with your children next time you read them a story.
If you get met with some resistance, that is okay too.  Sometimes children just want to hear a good story.  There is something to be said for allowing a story to continue without interruption, so that it can maintain the integrity of the spell that it casts on the reader and listener...

Journal Writing

Journals are a big part of literacy development in kindergarten.  We often ask them to write about things that are important to them.  Giving the children authentic opportunities to write inspires them to engage deeply in the writing process.  They do not see this work as a chore that is not as fun as play, but rather as a new and exciting way to communicate their thoughts to those around them.  They practice stretching out the sounds in the words that they want to write, and they develop their fine motor abilities as they write.  They learn to use resources around the room, like our word wall, and each other, as they offer help to their friends when they see opportunities to do so.  For every journal entry there is a space to draw and a space to write words.  Children in kindergarten have a wide range of skill levels.  We explain to the children that we are all have different skill levels and that is just fine.  The important thing to remember is that we are a community of learners exploring new terrains together.  We will all make mistakes, and we will all learn from them.  Our classroom is a safe space where all are supported, and all understand that it is normal for us to have different abilities.   In their journals they write with what we call developmental spelling, or kid writing.  The goal is for them to write phonetically, without paying too much attention to conventional spelling.  This technique allows them to build their phonemic awareness, and slowly unravel the code of written language.   After they are done we write what we call book writing under their words so that we can better understand and remember what they wrote.  We tell them that this is what their writing would look like if they saw it in a book.  So, it is okay for them to spell things "wrong".  This is the way they will learn best.  It is far too difficult and unreasonable for us to expect children at this age to spell things conventionally.  The English language has too many inconsistencies for that.  The children develop a positive attitude towards the writing process when they are enjoying sounding out words and writing what they hear, as opposed to feeling like they are spelling everything wrong and feeling defeated by the enormity of the task.  In kindergarten there is a focus on maintaining the natural joy of learning.  In this way, a foundation of a true love of learning is built for the purpose of carrying them forward into the rest of their school journey.

Seed Germination

One of the most wonderful things is to watch a seed germinate over the time.  Most of the time, that process happens under soil and students don't get to witness it.  In Kindergarten today, we made seed viewers, which will allow us to view the process over time.  As part of this experiment, the students used beakers and pipettes to carefully wet their paper towels, and then dropped seeds between construction paper and a clear cup to make their "seed viewer".  They also recorded Week 1 of this experiment by drawing their experiment after it was all set up.  Students made predictions as to whether or not they thought the seeds would grow without soil.  Here are a few of their thoughts.  "The seeds can't grow if they are not underground."  "If they have water, they will grow."  "The paper towel might be like the soil."

Book Sharing

Today we had our first Book Sharing.  We are telling the children that they can bring books from home, and then they can have a turn being the "teacher".  They sit on a stool in front of their classmates and tell them about their book, and then they call on their friends for questions and comments.  We ask that you help your children choose books from home that are considered Children's Literature.  This means books that are not based on Popular TV shows, movies or toys.  We would like the school environment to be minimally affected by the pervasive consumer influences.  Book Sharing will quickly morph into a general sharing time.   They are permitted to share either a book from home, something from nature, or something they made.  We find it is empowering for the children to sit in front of the class and run the show.  This is one of the many ways that we foster their leadership skills and build their confidence.

The Peace Book and more...

Today we read tThe Peace Book by Todd Parr.

We talked about what peace means, and then each child drew a picture and wrote words to the prompt, "Peace is..."  Tomorrow we will assemble our own Peace Book!   As the core of the kindergarten curriculum is being kind and helpful members of our classroom and school community, peace is an important concept indeed!  We are having fun getting to know what your children know about letters and sounds and reading and writing.  Remember that there is a huge range of "normal" when it comes to skills at this stage of development.

We have also been exploring shapes.  We were engaged in a discussion about how to tell the difference between a square, a rectangle, and a trapezoid - even though they all have four sides!
We found various shapes around our classroom and we made designs with pattern blocks.

Seed Hike - Science Room News

This past week, I learned that Kindergarten students have been interested in learning about seeds.  So we headed out on a seed "treasure" hike with each class!  Since the trees and flowers are making seeds now, fall is the perfect time to discover all kinds of seeds.  The students found acorns, pine cones, berries, chestnuts, maple seeds, sweet gum and sycamore balls, just to name a few.  We decided to take a look at the seeds under a microscope to see if we could learn more about them.  So we'll be learning about microscopes next in science class!

Resource Classes and more...

The children have experienced all of their resource classes, and they love them all!!  Here are a few pictures from Spanish with Alisa, Music with Aiden, and Science with Roseanne.  There are also a few other snapshots to give you more glimpses into your child's experience in kindergarten thus far.  They are having fun!  They received notebooks for writing and drawing.  We give them time to explore books around the room, and they are thrilled to "read" them with their friends.  We have read a few books by Robert Munsch, and they are hilarious!  We are cultivating a joyful relationship with reading and writing.  We are open with the children about how some of them are better readers and writers than others.  Part of our work around diversity is to help the children realize that it's okay to be at different levels of skill in different areas.  We acknowledge that we are all working on getting smarter in different ways, teachers included!  Making a mistake is an opportunity to learn something new!