December Reflection

A month of gift giving and receiving - December was full of anticipation and wonder.
  

 

I shared some of my favorite stories beginning with 

"Simple Gifts" by Chris Raschka.  This lovely picture book comes with a CD that reads and then sings the words.  It also gives the children some background information about the Shaker's. We were able to build on our schema from the study of people from long ago during Thanksgiving time. We added the word "simplicity" to the Bradt School "Juicy Words" Bulletin Board, devoted to increasing our students vocabulary.  We now know that simplicity means "not fancy" and that gifts do not have to be fancy in order to be valuable.  We learned a simple spiral dance that goes with the "Simple Gifts" song.  When we spiral in and out to the music we practice smiling at each other and looking right into everyone's eyes.  It is a magical and very simple practice that never ceases to delight.

Later in the month I shared the story "The Gift of Nothing" by Patrick McDonald.  This cartoon-like picture book teaches it's readers that the most important gift is in sharing time together.  As the kids excitement grew throughout the month I reminded them of how they could give old Mrs. Hackett "the gift of nothing" and we regularly sat still and quiet watching the second hand of our classroom clock circle around, measuring the passing of 1 minute.  I often received the gift of nothing just before lunch-time after a long, busy morning of learning together. Please feel free to redeem "the gift of nothing" at home. All you need is a clock with a second hand or a timer.  You will be amazed at how slowly a minute passes by, relish in every second!

Here is a reading of the story for your enjoyment-

And finally the story of "The Quilt Makers Gift" by Jeff Brumbeau completed our literacy unit on giving. This lovely fairy tale tells of a greedy king that is transformed through the wisdom and generosity of magical quilt maker. You may have noticed a "story map" of "The Quilt Makers Gift" come home in your child's folder.  These story maps serve as simple graphic organizers that assist the K kids to retell a story.  Retelling is an important skill that we will be working on in the months to come.  I hope you enjoy this beautifully written and illustrated story as much as I do.  

I wish you all the gift of simplicity as we greet a new year together.  Our relationship with our children doesn't need to be fancy to be valuable. Sharing books, music and time together is precious.  I wish you and your child many marvelous moments.

  

Letter Study Resources & November update

Hi Families,

November whizzed past me!  It feels like our letter study is just a big pot of alphabet soup at this point.   So, best to just give you the links to a few of the utube stations that I have shared.  Here you go-

Have fun teaching!

Kids TV 123

You should be able to find videos for all of the letters of the alphabet and most of the sight words, but not all. They also have great videos about shapes, counting and other basic math skills. These are two of my all time favorite digital resources! If you find others that you and your K kid enjoy, please share them with me.

Last month we focused on family.  We read many books about what it means to be a family and concluded that all families are special but share many similarities.

Here are a few of the books we read together last month.

Loving by Ann Morris is a beautifully photographed nonfiction book about families around the world.  Ann Morris provides her readers the marvelous opportunity to look at families through a multicultural lens.  The kids were able to take away the notion that no matter where people live, families love and care for one another. There is a terrific index and world map at the back of this book.  These text features both excite and teach the children about different countries throughout the world.

Todd Parr books always promise to delight!  The Family Book is no exception.  His silly and colorful illustrations always make us smile.  This is another wonderful book that shows the many, many ways to be a family and each is connected with one consistent thread, LOVE!

After reading about families I shared some Thanksgiving stories with the class.  One of my favorites is A Turkey for Thanksgiving by Eve Bunting.

The turkey in this book is especially thankful for his vegetarian hosts!

And there is so much to be thankful for - your wonderful children this amazing class and the privilege of being their Kindergarten teacher.  Here is a song we sang together.

I hope you enjoy it as much as we have.

Monsters and Letter Study for Aa, Ii, Bb & Cc

Late October was the perfect time for a Monster theme and there are so many fantastic children's books about monsters! We began with the book "Go Away Big Green Monster" by Ed Emberle.  This fun, engaging story is wonderfully interactive.  As you read it you see a monster appear and then disappear before your very eyes!  Also, the easy text is captivating.  The kids enjoy reading it over and over again and repetition is wonderful for early reading development. Here is a video that reads the book to you. Consider checking the book out of the library some time.

Another of Ed Emberle's books we enjoyed was "Glad Monster, Sad Monster"

This book offers a marvelous vehicle to discuss feelings. Each page has a monster mask that the kids try on and riddles that give clues to each monster's emotion.  This was a book that my son and I enjoyed together when he was in Kindergarten.  It would make a great addition to your home library.

Our school counselor, Mrs. Reihlman came in to our class during our monster theme and taught a wonderful lesson about emotions.  She gave our class a "feelings thermometer" and taught some strategies to use when emotional thermometers are running high.  These were, telling ourselves "I am okay", giving ourselves a hug, getting a drink of water and practicing belly breathing.  She shared this video with us.  

Belly breathing is sure to keep the monsters away!

If not....

I introduced the letters Aa & Ii.  The kids are learning that these letters are special because they are vowels.  Every word has to have a vowel!  Vowels are also special because they make 2 sounds.  We are learning a special vowel song to help remember these sounds (stay tuned).  In addition the kids are learning hand signals that go with each vowel sound.  Vowel sounds are subtle and tend to sound alike. The hand signals provide a way to tell these similar sounds apart.  Here are a few videos we've watched to help learn these letters sounds:

Then Bb & Cc.... Sorry, no videos for the sight words be & can - if you find some please share with me!

Pumpkin, Pumpkin and Letter Study for Ff & Tt

We have been reading about Pumpkins. 

Pumpkin, Pumpkin by Jeanne Titherington is a beautifully illustrated nonfiction book that teaches about the life cycle of a pumpkin, while at the same time tells the story of a little boy enjoying the outdoors throughout each season of the year.  

We had some fun cutting open a pumpkin and describing it using our five senses. We discovered that our pumpkin weighed 11 pounds and was 31 inches around.  It had a special smell and that it felt & looked different on the outside than the inside. Then we enjoyed snacking on some pumpkin seeds and designed a special face for our class jaco-lantern.  This class pumpkin will be making a special appearance at our upcoming Halloween party!

Another fun seasonal book we have enjoyed is The Little Old Lady Who Was Not Afraid of Anything.  This story was read to the class by our amazing speech therapist, Mrs. Peek who comes in weekly to do a whole group language lesson with our class.  The skill we were working with here was retelling. The kids sequenced the story by cutting and pasting pictures of key events.  I hope your K kid was able to tell you a little bit about the story when they brought this paper home.  Consider checking this adorable book out of the library and reading it together some time.

And the month of October would not be complete without the poem "Five Little Pumpkins".  Here is a cute video that we have enjoyed watching in our classroom.  Reciting the poem is a terrific way to reinforce the use of ordinal numbers and counting up to 5.  These are both skills the kids have been working on during math lessons.

Last, we are fully operational with our Daily 5 Literacy Centers! We are so fortunate to have Mrs. Barnes as a teachers assistant each afternoon.  I have been doing an emerging reading lesson while she has been doing a writing or word work lesson with small groups.  Other Daily 5 centers have been using Starfall.com on the interactive board to reinforce our letter study, listening to a book on tape and drawing pictures of our favorite parts and working on "books" at the coloring counter.  Here is a picture of Mrs. Barnes having the kids make letters out of pumpkin play dough!  I am including the recipe for you.  It is easy to make and the kiddos LOVE it!

Pumpkin Play dough recipe

We completed our study of letters Ff & Tt and sight words for & to. Here are a couple more fun videos that reinforce the letters, sounds and sight words.  The kids love dancing along to them. Music and movement are a delightful, age appropriate way to reinforce these vital skills.  Why not have a letter family dance party?  Have fun!

Letter Study Mm & Ss

Here are a couple of cute videos that the kids enjoyed that reinforce our study of the letters Mm & Ss

Fire Prevention Week

The kids delighted in a visit from the Carmen Fire Department on Tuesday.  This created a lovely jumping off point to integrate some reading and writing opportunities. Here is a video showing the kids "reading" a poem called "Firefighter".  They are using firefighter puppets that they made to point to each word.  Tracking print from left to right and having the concept of a word is critical to early reading development.  Take a look-

I hope you will ask your K kid to have their firefighter puppet "read" the poem to you!

This week's "Let's Find Out" magazine also focused on fire safety and included a diagram of a fire truck. The kids learned how a diagram is a picture that includes labels to teach us new things.  Then the kids made their own fire trucks that included some of the objects that were included on the firetruck diagram.  Here is another short video showing them working hard!

September highlights

Wow! Time flies when your having fun.  September was a whirlwind.  

After we spent some time getting to know one another and learning rules and routines, we began an alphabet study.  We read Chicka Chicka Boom Boom and Alligator's All Around.

These are two of my very favorite ABC books.  They also reinforce the concept of rhyme, which is an important skill for early readers.  Here are some fun utube videos that sing the books for you!  The children really enjoyed them.

We also looked carefully at the letters of our name.  These are often the first letters that children have quick and easy recall with. We counted and graphed the amount of letters in our name.  We discovered that most of our names have 6 letters, the shortest name has 3 and the longest names have 8!  Can you guess which names these are?

In addition to looking at the ABC's and rhymes, we are reading lots about apples and integrating this with science and math.  We began our apple investigation with Gail GIbbon's book The Season's of Arnold's Apple Tree.  This is another of my favorites!

The kids did some apple tasting, comparing the flavors of red delicious, golden delicious and granny smith.  We then graphed our favorites.  The tart green apples were a surprising favorite.

How can you not read Ten Apples Up on Top after that?  Here is another cute video that "sings the book" for you-

I also introduced the kids to our Science Station after we looked at our first "Science Spin" magazine. This issue focused on "science tools".  We cut up some apples and I put out a few magnifying glasses, tape measures and pan balances along with a few dry erase boards and markers for them to "record" their observations.  It is becoming a favorite activity during free choice time.

And we ended our apple exploration by making some good old fashioned apple sauce in the crock put.  The kids helped me operate my "apple peeler, corer, slicer". We threw in a little water, sugar and cinnamon. Then we enjoyed it together Friday before we packed up at the end of the day.  

Please use these resources to talk to your child about what they are learning!  I am sure they will be surprised that you know all of the wonderful things we have been doing in the "Peaceful Purple room".

Day 2!

Today was a whole lot cooler! 

We read the "Peace Book" by Todd Parr and I introduced our Peace Corner.   I like to think of this cozy spot as a place to have a "time-in" in order to avoid a "time-out".  I taught a simple lesson to teach the kids about their brains and then compared their brains to the engine of a train.  Sometimes kids engines can run too fast and they act "wired, or too slow and they act tired.  Taking breaks can help our "engines" run "just-right" so we can learn and grow happily ever-after.
I also introduced some simple tools to help with high/low engines. These tools help us to "come to our senses".  These are fidget toys for the sense of touch and kaleidoscopes for the sense of sight.  We also have a sound machine that makes the sound of gentle ocean waves or gentle rain. And we take regular movement breaks throughout the day along with long, slow deep breaths.   We learned a simple song to help us think about our engine level during the day so that we can  learn to "self regulate". When a child is self regulating, they are able to learn more!

We also read the book "The Dot" by Peter Reynolds

This is a sweet, simple story about a little girl that feels she can not draw.  The moral of the story is to simply do your personal best and it will be beautiful!  After reading, the kids painted dots with watercolors in the style of the main character - Vashti.  

We are surely becoming a Kindergarten Family!

Our Kindergarten Family Portrait 

(Yesterdays self portraits)

First Day Fun!

What a sweet group of children!  Despite the oppressive heat we had a marvelous first day together.  Between play times with table toys, on the playground and in indoor free choice centers, we learned some names, some rules and some routines.

We began our day with "Rapp Song" by Red Grammer.  He is a wonderful singer/songwriter for children and has long been one of my very favorites.  You can check his songs out on itunes

We also read a book that teaches how to say hello in many different languages, "Hello World".  The kids got a kick out of hearing them all!

We ended the day by drawing self portraits in the style of the illustrations from the story.

I will leave you with the beautiful hand-heart quilt you helped to create yesterday.  It was a pleasure to meet you all and it is an honor to have the opportunity to teach your children this year. Look  forward to seeing you again at our open house on Thursday September 24th at 6:30

The Peace Corner