Magisto: Alphabet Work

At the beginning of a new school year it is not uncommon to hear kindergarteners exclaim, " I want to learn to read!"  They are eager to move from from being read to by an adult to unlocking the code themselves and reading exactly what is on the page.

The start to this school year was no different; I could see the desire in their eyes and so began our reading work with letters and sounds.  Reading is more than knowing the names of the letters and their sounds; it is knowing how to play with sounds, match sounds to pictures, and write letter characters to match sounds they hear and produce orally.  

Developing a firm foundation with letter work was key the work we are doing now with rhyming, syllable segmentation and site words in daily guided reading groups.  As this video shows, the key to early letter/sound experiences is to have fun with reading to develop life long lovers of reading.  I hope you enjoy this video of some of those experiences!

Alphabet Work

https://magis.to/av/cX8-VkxAEFonfC4GDmEwCXh_?l=vsm&o=i&c=e

Butterfly Metamorphosis

Kindergarten aged children have real life experiences with changes in weather and the seasons.  Using their background knowledge and applying it to how the seasons affect people, plants and animals is a how we introduce the concept of life cycles.  At the end of the summer butterflies are laying the last of their eggs here in Vermont from which caterpillars will emerge.

We gathered Painted Lady caterpillars in a tank in our classroom to study the stages of their life cycle and metamorphosis.  From here we will study the life cycle of a sugar maple tree, apple tree, and the cycle in nature of the four seasons and how they are interrelated.  In winter we will study why certain animals either migrate, hibernate or adapt.  

During the first few days the caterpillars were in a small cups on top of tank, eating food that resembled an oatmeal mixture.  We started our observation journals, drawing exactly what we saw.


It's always more fun to make observations with a magnifying glass just like scientist do in a lab.  The caterpillars grew in size rather quickly which we noted in our drawings.


As the caterpillars began to slow down their eating we placed them in the tank and waited for them to attach themselves to the paper on the underneath side of the cup lid and form their chrysalis.  Once their chrysalis was hard we taped them to the inside of the tank and waited for the butterflies to emerge.


When the butterflies emerged they took time to rest and dry their wings.  We observed them eating the fluids inside the chrysalis and then provided sugar water on a sponge for them to eat.  We could see their long straw-like proboscis stretched out and in as they fed. 

As we released the butterflies we wished them a good migration trip!

We discovered the symmetrical features of butterflies and noted the duller color on the underneath side of their wings.

When butterflies migrate they are seeking warmth & shelter, food and a place to lay more eggs to continue the life cycle.  These needs cause them to migrate when the season change here in in Vermont.  

Class of 2030

Co-Teaching, Explore & Explicit Instruction in Small Groups

Our classroom is fortunate to participate in a program called "Co-Teaching" with our PPS kindergarten grade level Special Educator Jennifer Santarcangelo.  First of all, can I say how much your children LOVE to say her name... and the beauty of a multisyallabic name!  

Jen has been a member of the CSD for most of her career and over the last few has focused mainly on the kindergarten grade level.  As a special educator she works directly with students, consults with classroom teachers, observes student learning, and is a member of my classroom team.  

Jen and I, along with the PPS speech pathologist meet weekly to discuss all kids for what we call a "Kids' Day" meeting.   At times other specialized staff are invited to our Kids' Day meeting, such as the Behavior Specialist or the Occupational or Physical Therapist for CSD.   

Whether students qualify for special education or not, Jen's expertise is focused on learning and troubleshooting when kids struggle.  We work as a team to create individual supports for all kids.  If a child needs support beyond what is happening in the classroom, we discuss that at Kids' Day and she takes that information to the next level of support teams that meet at another time (and while I am teaching!).  This is how amazing PPS staff are in knowing your children and zeroing in on their needs.

Beyond all of this is CO-TEACHING for mathematics.  Jen co-teaches in two kindergarten classes, mine and Miss Donnelly's.  Thus, our two classrooms function as a learning pod, getting together over the course of the year for special math and literacy learning.

Each day Jen joins one classroom for math... so every other day she co-teaches math with me!  As a team, Miss Donnelly, Jen, and I plan out lessons together for the week ahead.  We plan for the WALT or "big ideas" our lessons will target.  We then look at the needs of all students, differentiating lessons for both classrooms and individual learning styles.  After co-teaching lessons we review what we did and discuss ways to increase student learning. 

When Jen teaches in our room, she and I work directly with a small group of students (groups rotate).  In this way your children are being taught by two highly trained teachers in an intensive small group format.  For now we are working mainly with two groups of ten children; soon that will change as we make three learning groups, increasing the student to teacher ratio for instruction.  It is am amazing process that highly impacts your children's learning process.  

Counting, identifying numerals, matching quantity and presenting their own work in front of the class!

My Counting Strategies

As a veteran teacher I use an array of teaching strategies... some that change and grow over the years, and several that have changed very little because they are gems that help all children learn.  Two of those are my counting strategies to increase accuracy in the counting sequence.  

The first is what I call "the doorbell" count.  When counting the doorbell way kids are taught to press and pause a moment with their finger on the object they are counting until the whole word (the number) is said, then move on to the next item, pausing on it until the whole word (the number) is said aloud.  This is especially helpful later in the year when they count large quantities and the numbers when said have multiple syllables.  

The second counting strategy is "pull away and count."  When using this strategy children slide the item they are counting away from the original group to a counted group... this helps them stay organized... knowing which ones have been counted and which are yet to be counted.

There were two significant mentors of mine who taught me the importance of letting kids know what they were learning about, one was from my college days at Boston College and the other a mathematician here in Vermont from whom I am still learning.  I use this strategy everyday.  I refer to it as WALT which is short for "We Are Learning To."  Everyday we talk about the WALT statement so that kids have a frame of reference for why they are doing an activity to build a skill.  You will see this posted in our room daily... for the counting strategies lesson, the WALT statement was "Count to tell how many" meaning they will use the doorbell and pull away strategy to count accurately and know how many items they have counted.

Launching Writing Workshop and Writers Share

It takes a little bit of effort and training to grow young writers... and yet look at them in just a few short weeks!  In the beginning we establish routines to follow for Writing Workshop, such as the practice of how we sit at the tables, keep our space organized with folders, paper, pencils and erasers.  We practice using a whisper voice to talk with teachers who move around the room supporting and extending learning.  When young children begin to see themselves as writers, their confidence grows along with their skills.

One of the most important steps in Writers' Workshop is what comes after the writing time... Writing Share.  This is a time for children to place their work on the document camera and stand before the class reading their work.  This powerful steps helps establish confidence and independence as they receive feedback from peers and plan for what they will add to their work the next day.

Reflecting on Our First Three Days

Literacy involves a multitude of skills that build a child's ability to speak, listen, present, write, and read.  These skills are needed as a private person and as community of literate beings.  We will create shared writing pieces, where everyone contributes to the conversation and recording of information... you will see this in the chart on the left.  Children also learn to record their own thoughts on paper.  

What impressed me the most was the details of what they did in school this week and how focused their ideas were on actual school behaviors and what we did as a class together.  What more could a teacher ask for....especially #6!

Learning to Read a Book Three Ways

Kindergarteners want to learn to read. I begin by teaching them that there are three ways to read a book: read the pictures, read the words, and retell the story. I model these three ways in whole group shared reading time over three successive days. Over the course of our first three days of school we used the book Hairy Bear, reading it in each of the three ways. On the first day we read the pictures, using the illustrations to figure out what the characters are experiencing and predicting what may happen from page to page. On the second day I read the text, and to their delight many of the events they described through the pictures were very close to the text words. On the third day we retold the story in our own words, adding more details and elaborating on the plot. In this way children begin to learn the power in using the illustrations to support their reading and that reading the words is not the only way to read a book.

Shared reading is a powerful learning time as I introduce many reading strategies and skills. As you will see in this collage, on the last page the children added their own text to the story, which I wrote with a wipe off marker. They were curious about the "word bubble" in the text showing what a character was saying. As a class the students decided to add other word bubbles to show what the other characters may be saying. I used this teachable moment to show them that when they write their own narrative stories they, too, can use word bubbles in their stories.  I was thrilled to see their excitement and thirst for learning reading skills. 

First Full Day of School

Such joy in starting school...Class of 2030!

Ms. Millham led our first BE SAFE lesson focused on the playground and how we use the equipment safely.  We tackled our first Shared Reading book together, Hairy Bear and explored alphabet letters.

Free choice time allows children time to explore classroom materials and bond with one another.

Smart Start

                   

Our year in Kindergarten has officially started!  During our Smart Start to Kindergarten we learned a little about about one another, toured the school, met lots of new teachers and played together.  We read The Kissing Hand by Audrey Penn to remind us that it takes a little courage and bravery to go off to school but we bring with us the love of our families as we grow and learn together.  

                     

                     

Math Pathways

Ahh...Number Sense... a phrase I have written about before... when young children see how numbers have a purpose in their everyday life and they can think flexibly about numbers, they begin to develop Number Sense.  

Number sense refers to a child's ability to use and understand numbers by:

*knowing their value

*knowing how to use numbers to make judgements

*knowing how to use numbers flexibly when adding or subtracting

*having strategies for counting, measuring and estimating

*being able to explain their thinking for solving problems and comparing numbers

In the pictures that follow you will see how children are building those numbers sense ways of thinking and developing strategies for solving numerical problems.  

Strengthening counting skills as a basis for early addition practice.

Representing numbers in various ways, comparing amounts and the importance of forming numbers correctly.

Teen numbers and place value...understanding how the digit "one" means "one ten and some more" in a teen number and numerical patterns on a hundreds chart.

Addition is a way of putting two amounts together...represented by numbers...growing when more items are added.

Learning to use tools for solving addition and subtraction is critical to being able to explain why, for example, 2+3=5.  We learn to tell the "story" of an addition problem in a way that tells how two amounts are put together to create a new total amount of objects.

Measuring to explain terms such as "longer/shorter" and "taller/shorter" and applying those to solving problems posed such as being tall enough to ride an amusement park ride.  How does one prove that with numerical thinking?

Internships and Student Teaching

We are fortunate this year to be able to form learning relationships with young adults growing as teachers.  In the fall semester our high school intern from Colchester High School taught alongside teachers once a week, honing her skills and developing lessons to enrich our curriculum.  Starting in January our student teacher from UVM has been with us everyday and has become an integral part of our classroom teaching staff.

Read aloud and an activity to support understanding family connections as part of All About Me social studies unit.

Using our daily weather graph as a starting point for experimenting with just how temperatures really feel using water that matches those degrees.

A celebration of learning with our intern and dreaming of what is ahead in our lives.

UVM student teachers are awesome and this year ours has been exceptional!  Whatever the focus, reading, writing, math, science... individual, small and whole group work... our student teacher enhances the learning experiences throughout the day.

Winter Writing Workshop

In the first trimester our writing focused on narrative writing, drawing from personal experiences in order to learn and practice the mechanics of writing.  In this last trimester we focused on opinion writing; learning to convince others of what we believe in our heart and think in our brain.

We learned to state our opinion, give three reasons to support our opinion and close the piece with an ending that restated our opinion.  We began with solving problems we observed around the school, letting others know our reasons for believing how we could improve what we saw.

We moved to reading an informational story and then forming an opinion based on what was written in the text.  For example, we pondered what we thought was the best season after reading a passage about seasons and gave convincing reasons why we thought one season was better than another.  We read about living in the city versus living in the country and used what we learned to write why we thought it better to live in one of those places... we used some of our own background knowledge, but also cited what was written in the text to support our opinion.


Narrative writing earlier in the year gave us an opportunity to add dialogue to what characters were saying... moving to opinion writing was very different as we began to tell people what we believed and why.

We still use good writing strategies learned earlier in the year... planning out our writing ahead by tapping out the words and rereading over and over again to be sure we write all the words we intend to and asking, "Does that make sense?"

Word work focused on sight words during other parts of our day support the writing we do in writing workshop... confidence in write exact words and using the word wall to be sure we spell words we know correctly.

We use sight word lists, the word wall and even words we know in our reading books to spell and sound out words.

Closing an opinion piece by restating what we believe so the reader can understand our reasons and the purpose of why we are writing.

Self-assessment: Students can now use a checklist to check their work for elements that they should include in their writing.  Rather than saying they are done and asking a teacher to check it they can be responsible for their own work and assess what they need to add and how they can make it the best it can be.

Reading Workshop Continuum

Reading Workshop this year began with mini-lessons focused on purposeful reading skills. Using familiar "old favorite" and fairy tales, we learned strategies for private reading and partner reading, carrying them over to more formalized reading groups.  During our literacy block we follow a structure known as The Daily Five.  Students use these same reading strategies when reading independently (Read to Self in Daily 5) and reading with partners (Read to Someone in Daily 5).  We moved from narrative and fictional texts in the first trimester to literary non-fiction texts in the second trimester.  No matter what type of book or genre we read, these foundational Reading Workshop skills are tools kids use to understand and comprehend what they read.  We continue to use them now as Super Readers who can solve reading problems confidently.

"Anchor Charts" made with reading strategy post-it notes are used to introduce a tool, gradually adding more and referenced almost daily in newer lessons.

We remember to "add a pinch of you" by telling what we are thinking throughout the story, giving our opinion, making comparisons and connections, forecasting predictions and retelling the story events in our own words.

We may not be able to read every word in a published trade book, but we know how to "read the illustrations," predict story events, describe the action we see to help understand what the author is writing about. 

We look for words that match the illustrations and sight words that help us understand the story or nonfiction book.

We practice reading like a teacher; instructing what we have learned about a text.

We practice storytelling fluency; making our voice match the intent of the character.

Reading like a teacher, listening and asking questions of the "teacher reader."

Punctuation is a tool for writers and readers... here we mesh learning how to write and read a sentence, closing it with a punctuation mark.  This tells the reader the intention behind a sentence and how to read it with the appropriate emphasis.

As we learn to recognize familiar sight words and the structure of a sentence, we use our reading finger to keep pace with the exact words on a page.

Reading and writing connect... learning to keep spaces between words helps us read individual words, matching our pointing to the exact words.  We created class made books with repetitive text, reading them multiple times for various purposes.  This helps strengthen more reading and writing skills...stretching all the sounds in a word, using upper and lowercase letters, spelling sight words exactly, and adding punctuation.

Sight words are a powerful tool for increasing reading accuracy... but most importantly for kindergarteners, recognizing sight words automatically builds confidence!