Writers' Workshop: How-to books

We've been working on a new type of writing in our Writers' Workshop! The unit focuses on informational books that teach the reader how to do something, so we're calling them "how-to books." 

We started off by thinking about games we know how to play, and writing directions to play one called Say Hello to the Floor. We did this as a whole group, in order to think about how to break down instructions for the reader into steps, including both words and pictures.

Next we looked at How To books from the library for some inspiration.

Then we got started writing! Here are some of our authors writing on things they are experts on. Feel free to ask your child what he/she is writing about!

Learning about families

In social studies we have been studying families. We brainstormed the definition of "family" (we ended up deciding it was anyone who loved you), described and compared our own families, and drew pictures of them.

We also read lots of books about families, including my favorite, The Family Book by Todd Parr.

Then we talked about different homes that families can live in - big ones, small ones, apartments, houses, trailers, castles, huts. We read the beautiful book Home by Carson Ellis.

Then we drew pictures of our own homes!

Engineering in practice - dominoes and picture frames

We've been watching fascinating videos from the website The Kid Should See This, which is full of videos made for adults but appropriate for children, on all sorts of topics from nature to math to space and technology. One of our kindergarteners discovered this video, and shared it with the rest of the class. The kids asked to watch it three times, and were instantly fascinated by the idea of dominoes! So I brought out the dominoes and they spent the next half hour trying to construct their own domino designs!

Here is the video we watched. I especially like the end of the video, which has outtakes - we talked about how oftentimes you need to fail many times when building something difficult, before you'll be successful.

And here are pictures of the kids working on their domino creations. An awesome example of perseverance and cooperation!

And another awesome example of perseverance and cooperation came when one of our students' parents brought in build-your-own picture frame kits! He gave the kindergarteners their own hammers, safety goggles, and nails/screws, as well as the instruction page for how to put them together. I was so impressed with how patiently the kids worked on putting them together. Many of them intuitively knew what to do and/or could read the instructions page more successfully than the adults who were helping them! It was a lot of fun and another great example of what kids can do when you give them the tools to create.

Happy St Patty's Day, and happy spring break!

Tomorrow is the last day before our spring break! I hope you all have a wonderful week together, and I will see you in April! Here are some pictures of our St Patrick's Day craft today. We wrote out six wishes we'd make if we had a leprechaun and a pot of gold!

What do you do when you wonder something?

Today we had an awesome spontaneous discussion during our reading minilesson, which was focused on how to take notes while you're reading a non-fiction book. The book was about what happens in spring, and someone wondered what worms do during the winter! They asked the reading teacher, who then asked me, but instead of giving them the answer, I decided to put it back on the kids to see what they could do to find the answer. Immediately they came up with some great ideas!

First, you can write the question on our wonder wall.

Then, you can try looking in a book. One student went to the library to check out a book on worms, and got straight to work.

Another suggestion was to "do research" by checking Pebble Go (a kid-friendly science website).

And the last suggestion was to check another informational video website we watch. It wasn't working today, so we settled on BrainPopJr.  Lo and behold, we found the answer, and learned a lot more about worms in the process! The team shared their answers with the class, and we made a chart of what you can do when you are wondering about something:

This was a great example of cooperative learning and independent knowledge-building! The kids felt empowered to answer their own question, instead of relying on a teacher or other expert to tell them. I was very proud!

Readers' notebooks

During Readers Workshop this week, we talked about how readers think while they read, and sometimes use a notebook to record their thoughts. The reading teacher and I modeled how to take notes, draw your favorite part, and record what you learned. The kids were super excited to get their own notebooks and got straight to work. Here are some pictures!