What are these super powers they are talking about? A video of reading a level A book

We are sure you have heard your child talking about their Super Reading Powers.  You may be wondering what they really are and how do they help your child read?  We have made a short video of a child reading a new level A text for the first time.  When your child has a new book the first thing they need to do is picture walk the book.  A picture walk is just looking closely at the illustrations on each page and talking about what words they can expect to see.  We did not video that part for the purposes of time.  What is on the video is the first read through of a level A book.  Level A books have a pattern.  All of the words repeat on each page EXCEPT for the last word on each page.  The children will memorize the pattern and the book, and that is wonderful.  This is the first step to conventional reading.  What is important at this stage of reading development is that they are looking at the pictures for visual cues to help them decode new (tricky) words.  In level A books this is the last word in the sentence.  The reader needs to be pointing at each word tapping once under each word as they read it.  This strategy helps them learn that each group of letters forms a word, and each word has a meaning.  Many times, if they are not pointing, they will make up extra words.  We call this using our Super Reading Finger.  The reader learns that each tap means one word, and if they are adding extra words there is nothing to tap under.  We do not slide our finger under each word.  The pointing/tapping is very important.  Most students will stop pointing when they become more confident as readers.  This usually happens around level D or E.  Even strong readers may return to pointing when they are trying to decode/read a very difficult passage.  The students are also learning to use their Eagle Eye.  This means looking closely at the illustrations to try to figure out a tricky word.  Most of the words on the page are our "popcorn" or sight words.  This is why spending time helping them learn these words are so critically important.  Popcorn words are words that usually cannot be sounded out and words that are common in most passages a young reader will see in the text.  The students need to be able to read/identify these words very quickly so they can move forward in the passage they are reading.  Another Super Power we are introducing soon is Lips the Fish or your Super Reading Mouth.  This strategy teaches the reader to look at the first letter of a tricky/unknown word and make the first sound to help them figure out the word.  This, along with using their Eagle Eye (using the illustration) can help the reader figure out a new/unknown word. 

We thought it would be helpful for you to see what it looks like when a reader is using these strategies to read a new Level A book.  We hope you find this helpful.  The more times a child reads a book the more fluid (reading like you are talking) they will become.  The more times they see the words while pointing to them and reading them, the more familiar the symbols (the groups of letters that make up the word) becomes to them.  This helps them identify the words in a new book they might read and transfer that knowledge (such as the word pond, fish and splash in this video) when they see it in another book.  Young readers learn through imitation (listening to and trying to sound like a fluid reader which is why we ask you to read to them 20 minutes a day) and repletion (reading the same book over, and over, and over again).  Thank you for taking the time to help your child become a strong and confident reader and a life long lover of books.  Enjoy the video.  We hope it helps you when you are working with them in their reading bags and other books at home.

 

What can you do to support writing after you visit the Pumpkin Patch

We hope many of you are taking advantage of the long weekend with your child by spending some time outside enjoying this beautiful fall weather.  Some of you may be visiting the Pumpkin Patch and we wanted to share with you some ideas on how you can use fall items from the visit to help enrich writing non-fiction/informational text with your child.

We have been doing an illustrator study in our Writing Block and we are encouraging our students to add detail to their pictures in their books they are creating.  We are also teaching into using our popcorn words and patterns to create books about their experiences at the Pumpkin Patch.  Pattern books repeat on each page and only one word changes (level A books).  An example would be as follows:

I see the turtle.

 

I see the seeds.

 

I see the leaves.

I see the tractor.

I see the vine.

I see the pumpkin.

The students are creating books like these to strengthen their knowledge of using patterns to help become better readers and writers.  They are really enjoying this unit!  This is another reason why helping your child learn their popcorn words is so critically important so please work with them several times each week on mastering these words!

 

 

Another way we are using the fall season to help them understand concepts in science and in writing is by using fall items to study and examine objects in nature like a scientist and then documenting or illustrating what they see/observe.  This makes the student study an object in detail and then try to record what they see by drawing it.  This encourages the student to use their five senses when studying the object which causes them to illustrate or record their observations in greater detail.  This will strengthen their use of descriptive words (adjectives and adverbs) when they reach first and second grade.  Building strong writers means letting them record their world.  When the student can draw in great detail they can recall things they want to tell the reader in their writing and this leads to more descriptive and more detailed sentences, essays and stories as they progress through their writing studies.  Here are some of the examples of our young scientists/illustrators/authors at work.  Please do this at home with any type of items they are interested in (lego's, leaves, buildings, tractors, flowers).  The subject matter does not make a difference, practicing recording what they are observing and enjoying it is critical in developing students that love to write!  Encourage them to label their writing by trying to write the first letter of the object, sounding out the word (don't worry about it being spelled correctly, just having them write down the sounds they hear) or have them make writers marks (scribbles that represent each word they want to write).  The goal is to get them to write and understand that the letters/words/writers marks help the reader understand what they are trying to convey.  This should be a pleasant and fun experience so don't worry about correct spelling yet.  They are really working on letter sounds and blending so even just coming up with one letter in each word they want to write is a positive step in the right direction.  We hope these pictures will help you do this at home.  It will strengthen their writing and keep them occupied!  Double bonus!

 

This student is drawing in pencil first so they can erase any mistakes they make.  He will then go back with crayons, markers or colored pencils to add the details such as colors and shading.

This student is not confident that they can draw the shape of the gourd so they are tracing the shape and then they will go back and add detail and colors.

This child is trying to record their observations independently.

These students are working together and drawing multiple objects on one page.

These students are studying their objects closely and trying to capture what they see by using different colors.

This child is working more toward telling a story in their illustrations.  They have added seeds to show the life cycle of the pumpkin.  They are also recording the fact that pumpkins can be different shapes, sizes and colors.

This child wanted to study the sunflower.  The seeds were falling out and you can see that she noticed the sunflower was not yellow.  She also recorded the stalk and leaves in her illustration.  She used a magnifying glass to study the sunflower in great detail.

This child is starting to use letters to form words to add more detail to his drawing.  He also wanted to tape on an actual seed to give the reader a real object to compare to his drawing.  He used labeling (see the arrow) and is trying to convey meaning to the reader by attempting to record his thoughts in sentence form.  He remembered from our illustrator study that he could draw several illustrations on one page.  He is showing the life cycle of the sunflower on this page.

Here he is closely studying the seeds and recording his observations.

Ms. Arrendale found a turtle shell on a nature walk with her niece and nephews during a trip to the country and brought it back to class.  Many of the students were very interested in the turtles at the Pumpkin Patch.  This student used a picture of the turtle (earlier in the post) and the actual turtle shell to add greater detail to his pictures about his experience with the turtles at the Pumpkin Patch.  Using pictures is another great way to have your child record their thoughts and observations during vacations and breaks.  We take a lot of pictures to help the students remember details so they can become stronger writers and authors.

This child is standing back and admiring his work.  He spent a lot of time working on his illustration and really studied his object (the taller pumpkin).  He was very proud of his work.

 

This student also added additional characters to his illustration as he recalled his experience at the Pumpkin Patch.  He wanted the reader to know that he and his friends found pumpkins in the garden at the Pumpkin Patch.  Having the real object available enabled him to recall more detail about his field trip and helped him to add more detail to his illustration.

 

We hope this helps you and gives you some insight to what your child is learning about in science and in writing at school.  Share this post with your child next time you get the answer of "Nothing" to the daily question of "What did you do at school today?".  Enjoy the rest of your break.  We hope to have another post or two for you to enjoy before you come back to school on Tuesday.



 

More Pictures from Pumpkin's Galore

As all of the teachers get their pictures uploaded we are able to add more pictures to the blog.  We wish we could post some of the pictures of the kids.  Some of them came out amazing!  If you took pictures we would love to have a copy of them for our classroom.  We use them to make our own class books for our library, some of the classrooms will be making photo essay's this year, and sometimes you just get a great picture that we could print and share with another parent who wasn't able to attend.  You can send the pictures through email, send us a link to a photo file, burn the pictures onto a CD or send it in on a flash drive.  Thank you for sharing with us.  We really do use these pictures to help the children with our writing units!

Here are some more pictures of our adventure yesterday.  Don't forget to read 20 minutes a night this weekend with your child, practice those popcorn words and maybe you will find time to take a fall walk with your child.  Review the letter of the week and go through your child's Kindergarten Binder with them.

This was the big white dog INSIDE the chicken coop!

Yes, this is where the dog was playing (and resting).

Bunny

Lots of little pumpkins.

Hello baby farm animal.  What is your name?  It tickles when you eat out of my hand!

Are you one of the 3 Little Pigs?  If so, what did you build your house out of, straw, sticks or bricks?

Vines

Big orange pumpkin on the vine!

 

First round of pictures from the pumpkin patch

We have been learning about the life cycle of pumpkins in science.  It was amazing to see the students identify each sequence in the cycle and properly identify them while at the pumpkin patch today!  They were so excited to see the cycle "live" in the garden.  This make learning so meaningful and they will remember this experience forever.  It is our hope that they can transfer this knowledge to other life cycles they will learn about during their education.

 

Bloom

 

Green pumpkin

Mature pumpkin

Bud

Green pumpkin on the vine

Investigating pumpkins in the garden

Leaves

Bloom

Vines

Leaves

 

They also loved the turtles.  Some of the kids could not get enough of these little guys!  They had so much fun investigating these little creatures.  They wanted to adopt them as class pets!

 

Large mature orange pumpkin

Beans

Corn

Exploring the texture of the beans (and corn) with our feet

 

Seeds

The straw maze was a source of fun and fright for our students!  Some of the kids could not get enough of the maze after successfully navigating the dark maze.  It was very interesting watching the kids support each other when they were afraid and encouraging each other to try the maze.  They were actively engaged in problem solving and oral language skills as they talked about their experience, shared how to get through the maze, and comforted their friends that were scared.

Tractor

Toes

Curly vines on the pumpkin

Turtle studying us!

Exit of the straw maze.

 

We had a great day!  Thank you to all of the parents who gave up their time to spend time with their kids to support their education.  As teachers we can not thank you enough for volunteering your time to help us today.  Your help with the kids, loading and unloading the lunches, tying shoes, transporting our loot for our curriculum, helping to kill bees at lunch, interacting with all of the students and helping with snack made our jobs so easy today.  We are so lucky to have such supportive and involved families.  We look forward to many more fun times together this year.  Be sure to check back soon for more pictures. 

 

Newsletter for October 21- November 1st

Because we have two short weeks coming up we have combined the next two weeks worth of Newsletters into one Newsletter.  We hope having this on the blog helps you in case you accidentally misplace your hard copy.

Our Apple Unit

We know how important staying involved in your child's daily learning activities are to you so here are some pictures and information about our Apple Unit.  We hope this will help spark conversation about what your child has been learning at school and how we are using the Fall Season to help our student's understand basic math, reading and writing concepts.  We also used the Apple Unit to introduce the students to many science concepts.  Using our five senses to gather data (explore) the apples is a fun and meaningful way for young children to start understanding that science is all around us and that we use science each and every day.  We hope you enjoy this peek into our school day.

We used the apples you sent in to introduce the children to the concept of estimation.  The children estimated how many seeds would be inside of an apple.  We wrote down their estimation, cut open the apple, pulled out the seeds and counted them.  We compared our estimations to the actual number of seeds we found inside the apple.  We then tried this again with another apple and found that different apples have different numbers of seeds in them.  We also talked about how the seeds, when planted, grow into new apple seeds.  (Ms. Arrendale's Class)

We used our new knowledge of color words to create these little apple color word readers.  We had to practice following multi-step directions to cut out and assemble the books.  We also had to look closely at the color words to know what color the apples had to be on each page so the illustration matched the text.  We had a lot of fun making these books and even more fun reading them! (Ms. Allen's Class).  

In each class the students practiced their listening skills by creating apple glyphs.  You should be able to tell a lot about the child by how they colored and put together their apples.  Each leaf represents the number of brothers/sisters or if they are an only child (orange leaf).  The stem lets you know what hand they write with.  The color of the worm tells you if they are a boy or a girl.  The color of the apple tells you their age.  This is a great activity that lets the children strengthen hand and finger strength/dexterity (critical for letter formation and proper pencil grip), listening to and follow directions both verbal and written (critical for speaking and listening skills in all academic and social areas), hand-eye coordination while gluing and placing objects on the paper (needed for illustrating their writing and spacial awareness) and many more objectives that are needed for building strong language skills.

We also used the  apples in each class to have a taste test.  We compared and contrasted the apples noting how they were alike and different.  We then voted on which apple we liked the most.  We graphed which apple we liked and did not like.  We then learned how to read the graph so we could figure out which apple our classroom liked the most.  We were introduced to math vocabulary such as least, most, largest, biggest, smallest, equal and same.  We were also encouraged to participate in logical reasoning by justifying why we choose the red, green or yellow apple as our favorite.  This led to lots of discussion especially when someone disagreed with our choice of favorite apple.  (Ms. De Stefano's Class)

In some of the classes we had time to experiment with our apples.  In this experiment we guessed if an apple would sink or float.  We then had to justify or explain why we though it would sink or why we thought it would float.  The moment of truth was when we placed the apple into a tub of water and found out that it would float.  The students had many great ideas on why it floated.  Don't forget to ask your child open-ended questions to learn more about how they think.  Some of their answers were amazing (such as the water weighs more than the apple so it hold the apple up).  

In each classroom we did many math experiments with our apples.  In this math experiment we measured the circumference of the apple by using a piece of paper or string and then placing the paper or string on a ruler and measuring how many inches it was around the apple.

Using technology in the classroom is a common core state standard (you may be hearing about this in the news).  We use the smart board to let the students learn how to move objects, play games, learn math and science concepts, watch nature videos (we watched a video on the life cycle of an apple) and create words.  This was a Smart-board Game on sorting apples.

This is the Apple Chart Ms. Boatright's class made after completing their math and science experiments on their apple.  You can see how many ways they measured, explored, gathered data and recorded their observations when experimenting with their apple.  It is our job in Kindergarten to expose the students to skills they will master in later grades.  Teaching them to chart their observations and refer back to the information so they can apply what they learned to future experiments is a critical foundation skills.  You will see lots of these types of charts in each classroom.  The students can now look at this chart and remember key details about their apple, new math concepts and new science concepts.  This is a skill they will need when they get older and start taking notes. (Ms. Boatright's Class)

We hope this will help to spark conversation with your student next time you ask them what they did in school and they reply that they did nothing or they can't remember.  Look for more posts showing you how and what we are learning in the weeks to come.