Pumpkins: A Class Book

Over the past month we have been reading tons of informational books about pumpkins. I combined this 'theme' work with the technology goals for my kindergarten students to create another class book. The book is called Pumpkins.  First, children dictated a pumpkin fact to me, and I recorded their words verbatim. Next, the children used the IPad app "Doodle Buddy" to illustrate the book. We compiled the book using the Ipad app, "Bookemon".

Click the link below to enjoy!


http://www.bookemon.com/book_read_flip.php?book_id=427740&check=61399466565d7ff3120574574b62f886

Week of October 20th

I absolutely LOVE when I hear of children carrying what they've learned in my classroom into the 'real world'. This student went to a pumpkin patch and found a blue pumpkin! This was an interesting find for him, since had just read in an informational text that there are actually BLUE pumpkin. This student's thought when he saw the pumpkin at the patch was, "I want to bring it to school". This was so meaningful to our class, and the kids were intrigued to see a real blue pumpkin just like the photo from our book on pumpkins!

The children practiced a sight word sort. There were various fonts for children to work with. All of these words are on our Word Wall, and this is a fun way to practice using them.

I hope that your kindergarten kiddo sang you this cute song :)  The children decorated a pumpkin and cut up the words, mixed them out, and then put them back into sentence order. This was a great literacy, work work activity.

Hard at work!

The children enjoyed some pumpkin computer games during Explore!

In FUNdations the children worked with letter tile boards. The magnetic letters are so much fun to manipulate. We worked on putting the letters into ABC order.

Fire Safety was AWESOME!!!

The October Calendar keeps surprising us with an evolving pattern...

We explored and discovered the several patterns that occurred this month. Next we  recorded the patterns to hang on our wall.

 

 

 

"We Like Apples": A Class Book

Here is the first class book written and illustrated by Ms. Rowntree's kindergarten students. First, we read lots of books about apples. We read both fiction and non-fiction books. Then "we colored pictures of apple things we like", as explained by a kindergarten writer. Finally we recorded our work (using Voice Thread) to share the book we are so proud of. Please click the link below to hear Ms. Rowntree's students read the book...make sure to turn the volume on!

Enjoy!


https://voicethread.com/myvoice/#thread/6174085/31730283/33187425


**NOTE** This post was a shared writing. I have been pulling up the blog to show children on the big screen (the Smart Board) and we have reflected on the great work we do in kindergarten. Their faces light up when they see themselves featured on posts. It makes me so happy to hear students say they look at the blog each week. This is also a special post because I've tried two new professional moves in this particular space:

1) I had the children help me write the blurb about this class book. I want them to own their work, and I want to honor their place in the creation of this blog. So, they recalled all the steps we took in creating this book. Every thought came from a student (including turning the volume up since it wasn't on when we went to preview the book! Oops!). We have written several other class books, which will be shared using various apps and tools. My hope is that students will experience a fresh motivation to do their best work, knowing that their voices will be heard by,  and their work will be seen by a wide audience.

2) I have never used Voice Thread before. I was inspired to give it a go because I am taking a fantastic professional development course offered by the district. It is called Writing, Technology and the Common Core. My professional goal is to share kindergarten writing using new tech avenues and to engage children in technology as part of the writing process. I've had a blog up and running for several years now, but wanted to expand how I presented kindergarten writing beyond just taking pictures. I wanted for you, our steadfast audience, to hear their voices and really experience their work. I introduced the idea of an "audience" to my students. This is a vital word and concept. As writers, illustrators and bloggers, we have a large audience who is interested in the incredible kindergarten work we do. Their writing and illustrating has a purpose, and I thought sharing it here would help my students truly see this.

Stay tuned for more kindergarten writing...I'm excited to push myself as a teacher and find new and engaging ways to inspire my students to do their very best work; and, to share my students' work, which I'm so proud of--but most importantly that THEY are so proud of.

Week of October 13

We had a short week, but that didn't stop us from packing in lots of new learning activities. I am working hard to build up choices in Work Board stations now that we are deep into each curriculum. I typically try to create games and materials that extend and "piggyback" on lessons from Bridges, Number Corner, and FUNdations.

This 123 activity encourages children to practice recognizing numbers 1-20 and then sequencing the numerals into counting order. A challenge would be for a child to count backwards from 20.

This is another 123 activity that involves putting numbers 1-10 into counting order and then placing the corresponding amount of apples (marbles) onto the tree. 

This reinforces 1:1 correspondence skills.

More 123 fun: a child works to identify how many dots on a 10 frame, put them into counting order, identify numerals 1-10, and finally matching the 10 frames and corresponding numerals.

We practiced writing lower case 'e' this week.

We also learned how to write 'r' during FUNdations.

We added the sight word 'the' to our word wall this week. This is a literacy/theme activity where children practice writing 'the' in the blank spaces. Then they use their fine motor skills to rip bits of paper to create a colorful fall tree.

Hard at work in the theme area.

In the book making 123 station, children identified and highlighted the 'location words' in this mini book. Next, the drew Wiggle the worm according to the location.

123 Book making station. These books stay in the children's book bins for them to access and read anytime they want to.

Book making.

The children are really excited about the pattern emerging on October's calendar. They are excited to make predictions about what the following day's pattern might be. The important words this month that we use to describe the leaves on the calendar card are: to the left, to the right, up, and down.

Week of October 6th

On Monday I read "The Rainbow Fish", by Marcus Pfister, We had a lovely conversation about sharing and how it is a classroom expectation to share materials. Everyone feels happy when we work in a space where we share. This is one way of taking care of each other. The children painted their own fish, and everyone got one very special shiny scale as a reminder of our promise to share.

The fish are so colorful and cheerful.

Pattern work in the 123 Work Board station.

Morning messages are rich with literacy (and math). On this day, children filled in missing sigh words, learned the word "you", circled all the punctuation marks, and counted up the total words in the message. They also talked about what was the same and different about the two five frames. 

Four Winds this month was another lesson about ecosystems. Wiggle and Woggle, the worms, talking about soil, roots,  and decomposers We learned that soil is made of water, air, minerals, and organic matter. Not only this, but we were interested to learn that soil is actually an ecosystem!

Mole is a worm predator!

Taking a close look at worms, which are integral in the health of soil!

Some brave students even held the worms!

Kindergarten scientists drew a picture of the worms.

We ventured outside to dig in the dirt to look for worms and other evidence of an ecosystem. 

We also pulled up some weeds to examine the soild around the roots.

This week was especially exciting because we had our first class in the computer lab. Mr. Bianchi talked us through computer work stations and gave an overview of how to use the computers. It will take lots of practice, but in a few weeks children will start to gain independence in logging on and off, and navigating the mouse to choose a kindergarten appropriate computer choice.

ABCya.com was a bit hit for the first lesson :)

Later in the week children started to use the computers inside our classroom. Computers will now be a Work Board station.

We dove into Writer's Workshop this week. Above are the core ideas of the first lesson. The main goal is to establish a 'safe', fun and exciting writing culture. The big idea is that we are all writers!

The group loves this block if time. They have taken their work very seriously and are extremely proud to share with each other!

Writer's Workshop

Writer's Worlshop

We have been reading lots of informational books about pumpkins.

As a result, we've started to keep track of pumpkin vocabulary. The children listen as I read, and raise their hands when they hear a word specific and important to the topic of pumpkins.

The list grew with each book we read!

Working with ten-frames in math to compose combinations of various amounts.

Here are the Big ideas of writers workshop from this week, all setting the tone for a positive and productive kindergarten writing culture.

Here is a core math idea from a new game called "Count and Compare".

Children draw a card from a deck, decide which number is greater or less than (or equal to). Then they spin to decide who keeps the cards.

They play until the deck runs out, then tally up how many cards they each have. The final spin decides if the player with the greater or lesser amount wins. This game encourages practice using ten frames, number recognition, and using math language of greater than, less than, and equal to--all an important part pf number sense concepts.

New pattern activities in 123.

Mrs. Nelson joined us for You SKills this week for a lesson on how to handle problems in school. She introduced the language of 'reporting to a teacher' and 'working it out with a friend'. We talked about the difference between the two, and what situations would warrant reporting something to a teacher.  The hope is to foster independence and confidence in children so that they can try to problem solve together and fix minor issues without immediately involving a teacher.

We enjoyed another fun week in kindergarten. Stay tuned for highlights of our upcoming week together!