To go along with our citizenship unit, we read Swimmy by Leo Lionni. One day a tuna fish came by and ate up the entire school of fish, except for Swimmy. Swimmy was different than the rest of his "school" of red fish. He swam faster and wasn't afraid of the ocean predators. After a long journey through the ocean, Swimmy found a new school of fish hiding in the rocks. He taught the other fish in his new school to stick together and work as a team. Together, they could create a big fish and scare away the tuna fish who used to gobble them up. Each kindergartener in our school is part of our classroom community. When work together, we can fearlessly accomplish anything our hearts and minds desire. |
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Kindergarteners need a variety of hands-on experiences to learn and show their understanding of mathematical concepts. During the first five days of our math time, my students were given an opportunity to explore specific math manipulatives we will be using throughout the year. The only directions given to them were that these materials were tools, not toys. We were introduced to the names of each material:
Boy, oh, boy! These smarties were already using fantastic math vocabulary on their own! I heard color patterns being named, items being counted, shapes being identified, and lengths being compared. I saw objects being sorted by color and shape, the towers and chains being measured by carpet squares, and, most important of all, excitement of inquiry on the faces of each student. After our initial launch, the kiddos were finding a few good read to self spots, but weren't really utilizing the entire room. Mrs. Roeschley used No, David! to practice the three ways to read a book. We discussed the character, David, and determined he had a hard time making good choices. To get the kids exploring the room for read to self spots and make connections with the character, we had them find "David Spots" for read to self all around the room. It was so silly being David!! The next day we reviewed character traits by describing David. We decided to make better choices and find our own smart read to self spots in the room. Look at these cuties building their stamina! No one even looked up to see I was taking pictures. :) We will be making a class book inspired by No, David! by David Shannon to show bad vs. good read to self spots in our room. Pictures of the book will come as soon as it is finished!
As a fourth grade teacher, I used the Daily 5 and CAFE model to structure my language arts block. As soon as I found out it was a possibility for me to teach kindergarten, I was on the internet (actually in Mr. J's parking lot!) researching how the Daily 5 would work in kindergarten. After much research and planning, the day finally came for Mrs. Roeschley and I to launch Day 1 of The Daily Five in kindergarten! The Kissing Hand helped us learn two of the three ways to read a book. First we read the pictures and then we read the words. My kindergarten friends decided it would be fun to get to read books on our own. We brainstormed reasons why we wanted to read to ourselves. Then we decided what students would look like and sound like during read to self. They thought they were ready to practice on their own, so we had a friend model the correct way to read to self. She did an awesome job! Another friend showed us the incorrect way to read to self. It was difficult for him to show the wrong way... at first! Then he tried again to show us the correct way. He, too, was great. We made a stamina goal of two minutes and I let them go.
So, we were ready, right?! After several practices, we finally reached one minute of stamina. Not our goal, but definitely something to celebrate! By the end of the first week, all of our kindergarteners were reading to self for four whole minutes!!! I'm so, so, SO proud of them. The playground is a great opportunity for our kindergarteners to meet new friends and practice making good choices. What an exciting part of our day! It's been a very busy second week in Kindergarten! In addition to learning routines and expectations, we learned a lot about citizenship. We found out citizens are people in a group, or community. Kindergarteners brought in "Me Bags" and shared four things about themselves in our community circle. It was so sweet to hear the members of our community make connections with their interests. Seeing how every member of our community is unique was also very neat. After learning about each member of our community, we discussed how being a good citizen in our community means treating others the way we want to be treated. We read the book Do Unto Otters by Laurie Keller to help us learn this "golden rule". After doing a little research on what real otters look like, where they live, and what they eat, the kiddos created their very own paper bag otter puppets. They're absolutely ADORABLE! We practiced our cutting skills to make speech bubbles for our otters. Each kindergarten friend was able to tell me something a good citizen would say and I recorded their responses on their otters' speech bubble. Some of us even looked back in the story to remind us of how otters can be good citizens. Once the otters were decorated and their speech bubbles in place, the otters took over our classroom in conversation. I heard so many "thank yous", "your welcomes" and "excuse me, please" from these kind citizens. These sweet moments are why I am so thankful to be a kindergarten teacher!
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September 2017
AuthorHi! I'm Katie Flanary. I've been teaching for seven years and absolutely love it! I'm excited to start my eighth year making this my fourth year in kindergarten. Categories
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