Wednesday, November 25, 2015

I am Thankful Part 2

In our short week before Thanksgiving, we read a book by my favorite children's author, Todd Parr, called The Thankful Book. 


Then we made our own version of The Thankful Book, using oil pastel crayons to make our illustrations look like Todd Parr's. Here are some pictures of us reading the books to our reading partners:




Last but not least, I sent this home in the kids' folders yesterday. I am very thankful for such a wonderful class of kindergarteners!


Sunday, November 22, 2015

I am Thankful Part 1

I can't believe it's almost Thanksgiving already! We kicked off our Thanksgiving activities by making these sight word turkeys. The kindergarteners are thankful they can read these five sight words! It's always exciting to see them start finding these words in books and on posters. See if your child knows the five sight words they wrote on the turkey feathers!









Sunday, November 15, 2015

Reading to our animal buddies during Readers Workshop

We have Readers Workshop every day, in which we study strategies for learning to reading, and reading to learn. The first part of Readers Workshop consists of 5-10 minutes on the carpet as a whole class, called the "minilesson." This is when I teach the students a specific skill or lesson on reading, everything from how to read the pictures to how to ask questions as you read.

Afterwards, the students grab their book boxes, which are filled with 10-15 books, and head to their "Read to Self" spots. They spend the next 10-20 minutes reading quietly to themselves. But as you may expect, it's hard for kindergarteners to sit still and quiet for that long! So last weekend I made a trip to Goodwill and found these beanie babies for super cheap - enough for each kindergartener to have them as their new reading buddy! These animal buddies make their home inside the students' book boxes, so whenever they want to read, they can always pull out their animal buddy and read to them.

Check out these adorable pictures of kindergarteners reading to their animal buddies!






Tuesday, November 10, 2015

All the leaves are falling down

We have been looking closely leaves lately! Below are some of the projects we've been doing while investigating leaves.

First we went on a leaf hunt in the schoolyard! So many leaves had fallen down already.






Then we read the book Leaf Man by Lois Ehlert, and made our own leaf animals like the ones in the story.





All the leftover leaves went in the leaf table, which is filled with dirt, leaves and pinecones to play in!


We also did several art projects that took careful concentration, including using permanent markers to draw patterns on each leaf lobe, then painting over with watercolor paints.




Then we used Q-tips and regular paint to make fall trees!





Aren't they beautiful?



This was our poem of the week, "All the Leaves are Falling Down," sung to the tune of London Bridges Falling Down. We sing or read the weekly poems every day, and each child gets a copy for his/her poetry folder, which they can read during Read to Self time. I also send home a copy with the weekly homework, so the kindergarteners can share it with their families!