Coding and Friendship in Kindergarten

One of my favorite lessons!

Moonshot Academy

This is what I've been up to so far this summer!! More kindergarten updates coming soon!

http://moonshotacademyrms.blogspot.com

The Curious Garden

I am very fortunate to be part of a community focused on improving student literacy. This is from the web site for The Learning Alliance-

" Scientists study the brain, but teachers shape it. The Learning Alliance is committed to training teachers to understand the basic neuro-psychological processes involved in reading and reading development. A foundational knowledge of language structures and how they are processed in the brain allows teachers to analyze, evaluate, and deliver instruction to meet the individual needs of all types of readers.

The Learning Alliance provides quality professional development followed by individual and group coaching and mentoring. We want to arm our teachers with knowledge, tools, and opportunities to practice in collaborative and supportive ways. Awkwardness is normal when learning anything new, and it is our intention to give teachers the time and support to learn, model, and practice so that finally this knowledge will be internalized, and they, in turn, will be able to do the most important job of all, teach all children to read."   ---- see SO lucky!!!

I participated in professional development around the book The Curious Garden . I brought the new visual thinking, literacy, and comprehension strategies I learned into my classroom for this unit. This book tied in really well to our fall unit on plants and harvest and it also fit with our essential question "How are communities helpful?". I was able to hit almost all of the first quarter reading, language, and listening & speaking standards in this week long unit. One of the standards was to identify the major events in the story. The students worked together looking back in the text to decide which events they thought were the most important when retelling the story.  Our culminating activity was this paper cut out garden inspired by the work of Molly Bang How Pictures Work. I gave students the construction paper and scissors. They couldn't draw to plan out their garden, they just had to cut. I think they are amazing! You will see the text the students pulled out of the book displayed with our garden.

 

 

Authentic or Real Art

Through a book study of Teaching With Intention  and sitting in a Writing Workshop training discussing asking kids to write in the way that writing IS in in the world (to be read by others not just daily journaling) made me examine the way I use art in kindergarten. I love a cute turkey handprint but what am I really teaching kids about art when I press their cubby little fingers into paint? This year I have been trying to incorporate real artists or mediums into our kindergarten art. I am NOT an artist and I don't remember much from my works of art class in college but I excel at scouring the internet for ideas. At the beginning of December it was time to take my Thanksgiving Family Turkey projects down and that left the windows bare - I didn't want to display anything Christmasy - I figured the kids are nutty enough without the constant classroom display to remind them of Santa. I called on my good friend Pinterest for art ideas - specifically the alphabet since I had just finished introducing all of the lowercase letters. Pinterest never disappoints! I found information about an American Modernist Painter named Stuart Davis. We looked at his work and I read the class a little about his life. We studied how he layered his paintings and that sometimes it looked like the art was popping out. The first day the kids just painted letters in white. I told them to turn the page so the letters would be in different directions. The second day they filled in the black space with color. The third day they added foam sticker letters for the pop art look.

Writing like Scientists

This is the second year I have used Lucy Calkins Units of Study for writing. I absolutely love it! I was lucky enough to have additional training this summer from the Teachers College Reading & Writing Project. The trainer suggested that I try the unit Writing Like Scientists that is in the If/Then unit. It fit right along with the Core Knowledge plant and harvest unit as well. I loved teaching this unit. The students LOVED it and really got into collecting nature items. They brought in things to write and learn about as well.

Antarctica Unit

Our culminating activity to our kindergarten Antarctica unit. We went through the performance cycle from the book A Reason to Read - the students picked out the major events in 4 information texts about the Emperor Penguin and created storyboards and monologues from the penguin (or krill, squid, & seals) point of view. They included facts and vocabulary they had learned and designed and constructed puppets. Through much trial and error, reflection, and revision I am proud to show off their work!

Walker Texas Ranger

Kindergarten life has been very busy the last few weeks.. and I keep thinking that it will get better.. but it really feels like I've hit the ground running this year. But when I think back to the last 16 Septembers I've spent as a teacher.. I think they have all felt like this! The beginning of the year is like child birth.. you forget the pain... and inevitably repeat the experience and remember why you vowed never to do it again! I am really enjoying getting to know my class and we are really starting to "gel" and get all of the routines and procedures down.

A few days ago I left my lunchbox on the counter. I didn't realize until I was already at work so I called my husband Mr. Lewis in a panic. I didn't have cash or check to buy my lunch in the cafeteria and I was staying after school for professional development until 6:00pm. Thankfully, Mr. Lewis was able to deliver lunch to my classroom. The kids were very excited to meet him and had many questions for me after he left- the biggest most intriguing question was - "why do we have the same last name"? I explained that when women great married they can change their last name if they want  and have the same last name as their husband. Well, the boys were kind of miffed, so I told them that they too could change their name... (we had to get started on our math lesson after all!)

From the back row I hear a little voice say, "awesome- I am going to change mine to Walker". I smiled at him and asked why he picked that name? And in the cutest just turned five sweet kindergarten voice he said, because I love Walker Texas Ranger. Totally made my day! And I was quickly reminded exactly why I choose to return to my kindergarten classroom year after year.