First of the Year Kindergarten Bulletin Boards

Nursery Rhymes are a popular bulletin board for the first standard-based bulletin board in Kindergarten.  The board to the left includes a delightful illustration of the beginning, middle and end of the nursery rhyme Humpty Dumpty which helps a student begin to see that even very short stories have beginnings, middles, and ends.  It is amazing the detail that some kindergartners can already put into their pictures! This board also includes a worksheet where students have to draw some of the vocabulary words in the rhyme such as wall, King, men, horse.  It also includes a rhyming activity where students have to draw a rhyming word for some of the words that the students have been working with such as drawing a picture of a word that rhymes with wall (ball). 

This board on the right also focuses on the nursery rhymes that are part of our early learning but in this case the entire focus of the board is phonological awareness - the rhyming activites that are being taught through the rhymes.  For instance, the rhyme Hickory Dickory Dock includes the rhymes hickory-dickory, dock-clock, and one-run.  The board shows several rhyming activities such as listing words that are in the -ock family, being given a picture and selecting or cutting out another picture that rhymes with the pictured word.  Rhyming is such a fundamental skill because it is so hard for students to move forward if they cannot hear rhyming at the end of words!

Mrs. Roberts also features work with Nursery Rhymes on her bulletin board.  Her board includes several activites, also with rhyming words but the activity that is unique is her work is with the SmartBoard to teach rhming with the nursery rhymes.  Bet the children are mesmerized!

This board is all about "name" activites including combining the work we do in nursery rhymes to teach phonological awareness by using  a child's name.  We know that there is no more important word to a child than his own name so the board shows how you can substitute the class.  Jane and Henry went up a hill...It also shows a list of the words that the class discovered that also start with the same sound as a student's name and that student's homework when children were asked to bring in items from home that started like their name.  The final activity includes a list of the children's names in the class where the children have counted/ clapped the syllables that they can hear in each name. 

 

The standard-based bulletin board below focuses on the drawings and words that are the final activity of "Star Names". After the children have done many acitivites that emphasize the beginning sound of the name of a single star student for the day, each child is asked to draw a picture of the star student. The teacher models the child's name as the class follows and then draws a picture of the student. The students begin with simple pictures and then more elaborate pictures that begin to fill up the white space and then finally stories about the student. As the drawings become more sophisticated, so do the words, beginning with the child's name and then moving to labels, sentences and then stories. This bulletin board displays the many levels of entering kindergartners, from a simple, almost unidentifiable picture with mock letters and scribbles to a sophisticated drawing with a phonetic sentence.

Mrs. Mallon and Mrs. Dillard's bulletin board focuses on the beginning stories that our youngest authors write in Writers' Workshop, showing four different levels of writing from simple drawings to  detailed drawings with simple phonetic sentences. What makes this board interesting is the way that the teachers introduce writing to their class by telling the students to first imagine a story with a beginning, middle, and end over three pages before they begin writing and then to tell their stories through drawings and words. It is amazing what these youngest writers have to say and what they can already write!

 

Each of the bulletin boards above provides a window into the important instruction that goes on inside kindergarten classrooms so early in the school year.  Can't wait to see how these boards unfold in the months to come.

Pancakes, Pancakes!

After reading Eric Carle's delightful Pancakes, Pancakes, the children were full of connections. Not only did they share stories about eating pancakes with their families and their favorite type of pancakes, we learned that a few of our friends had never tasted pancakes! The children loved that this new Eric Carle book reminded them of The Little Read Hen (one of their Star Books) and how she made bread, much like the pancakes in their new book. They remembered that they had visited threshers earlier in The Gingerbread Boy (another Star Book!) These types of connections, text-to-self and text-to-text, are responses to reading that good readers make. They will be the basis of some of the responses to literature that the children will write.

Enjoy the sequence of events below:

First we add 3 cups of the pancake mix.

Then we add 2 cups of water.

Next we stir and stir and stir.

then we pour the pancake mix on the griddle.

When you see little bubbles, it is time to flip the pancake.

We need to make lots of pancakes so everyone will have some to eat.

Finally we get to the best part! We add some syrup and eat the pancakes! Yummy!

Vocabulary - Mop Top

Several years ago, after we read the work of Beck and McKeown, a group of Kindergarten teachers at Chets Creek decided to write our own vocabulary study. We looked at books that we were using for oral retelling after coming back from studying with Lucy Calkins at Teachers' College in NYC. We selected the best of those books and then choose 6 words for each book - 4 words that were actually used in the book and 2 words that were implied. We then wrote vocabulary activities for each of the books. We have used and edited the vocabulary for about 4 years now. Not only do the teachers love the work, but the children clearly are using the vocabulary in their oral speaking and in their writing! The bulletin board above by Maria Mallon and Cheryl Dillard, shows how their kindergarten class has incorporated the vocabulary unit into their curriculum. This board shows activities around one of our "Star Books," Mop Top.

"Vocabulary Jeopardy," as illustrated above, is a game played in the classroom as children learn new words with each new book. The teacher asks the question and the children have to name the word. It's a fun way to practice definitions.

The book above is an example of a child that has incorporated the vocabulary that the class has been learning into her writing. She has written a pattern book called, "What makes you thrilled?" This book clearly shows that she understands the word!

The activity above is an example of one completed by each individual child. This concept map is words and pictures for the word thrilled. The activity above shows four of the words from the story, Mop Top, illustrated by a kindergartner - stumbled, floppy, soaring, thrilled. This activity has been used as an activity so students could show their understanding of the words but also could be used as an assessment.

Supporting Second Language Learners

One of the most outstanding standard-based bulletin boards this month is the board presented by Nina Thomas and Laura Sambito's kindergartners. This board supports the second language students in their classroom, describing the strategies that they are intentionally designing to support students who speak a second language.

Mini-lesson. During the mini-lesson of Readers' Workshop the teachers use visual cues to support their second language students as they introduce comprehension. The poster on the left is a typical kindergarten poster that shows students the story elements of some of our "Star Books." In this case the teachers have intentionally used visual aids instead of words to support, not only their second language students, but all of their young non-readers.










Work Session: Independent Reading - As children leave the mini-lesson to practice their new skills during independent reading, the teachers understand that although reading is difficult for any five year old, it is even more difficult for the student learning English as a second language. One of the things that these teachers have done is to pair children who speak the same language together so that they can use both their native language and their new language to support their learning. The teachers have noticed that the second language learners are able to discuss the stories in much more detail when they are able to speak with someone in their native language. They have seen the students' confidence soar. The teachers have also created story webs as a visual representation of what they want the students to do. In this case, they have even written the directions in the student's native language to help parents understand the expectation when the sheet goes home later in the week.

Work Session: Literacy Centers - Students practice the retelling skills they are learning in Literacy Centers. In this classroom the teachers make sure to have puppets, flannel board characters, costumes and sequencing pictures for each of the stories that they are studying to support the second language students as they learn to comprehend and sequence new stories. While this is good practice for all young learners, these props are intentionally added to make sure that second language students have optimal opportunity to participate in oral storytelling.
About 18% of the population at Chets Creek includes students whose parents speak a second language at home. Although we have many, many languages spoken the highest percentage of families speak Spanish. Second language learners are the largest growing population at our school. One of our School Improvement goals addresses our need to make sure that these families and students are supported throughout their time at the Creek. It is obvious that these kinder teachers are thoughtfully considering accommodations to make these students successful in their class. To help parents, they have even provided the commentary for this board in two languages!

Roaring Retellings

One of my favorite "Star Books" is The Three Billy Goats Gruff. This standard-based bulletin board from Mrs. Alvarado's class actually shows the exact text from the book and then the teacher's dictation of three children reading that same section of the book. Using the scale developed by Elizabeth Sulzby and refined by Lucy Calkins, Mrs. Alvarado assesses each passage. The assessment helps her know what the next step is in conferring with each child. In the case where the child's retelling begins to sound so much like the story language in the book that it sounds like the child is reading instead of just retelling the story, the teacher knows that the child is ready for conventional reading.

Rockin' Retellings

"Rockin' Retellings" is a standard-based bulletin board from Julia Lewis' Kindergarten class that chronicles the work that we do to support oral retellings. On this bulletin board the teacher shows four different activities that the children did to help them with retelling "Caps for Sale."

This first example shows a child that has drawn the story "Caps for Sale" in pictures. The child is practicing retelling by drawing the sequence of the story.

In this example the children have learned a song with motions that describe the sequence of events in the story, "Caps for Sale." Moving through this sequential order will help the student as he retells the story later by looking at the pictures in the book.

In this example the children play the parts of the major characters, the peddler and the monkeys. As the children play the parts of the story, they practice the dialogue and story language in the book.

In this final example the teacher actually recorded the oral retelling of a student as she looked at the pictures and told the story of "Caps for Sale" during her independent reading time.  All of this extra work on oral retelling will pay off in spades as the children write retellings later in the year. Stay tuned as this group moves through the year!

Readers' Workshop - Star Books

Readers' Workshop begins the first day of school. Teachers begin by reading "Star Books" which are books that we have chosen because of their strong narrative elements (characters, setting, events, problem and solution). The list of books that we use, along with resources can be found on our Kindergarten wiki. We read these books every day, reading four new titles each month.

Mini-lessons. As part of our mini-lessons we identify the characters and the setting of each new book. We decide what the problem is and how the problem is solved. We talk about and draw the beginning, the middle and the end of each story. We also act out the stories, helping the children learn prosody by creating voices for the different parts. One the children's favorite early books is The Three Billy Goats Gruff. The children especially like being the troll and using their mean, tough voice!  Over the course of the week each child in the class will have a chance to be one of the characters.

Vocabulary Continues

Chets Creek Kindergarten teachers assessed and now are ready to teach the words for each of the "Star" books - lessons they have written themselves to go with their favorite read-alouds. Below teachers demonstrate the word frightened and then the students show what they think they would look like if they were frightened!

Frightened is one of the six vocabulary words taught as the class has enjoyed the read-aloud Where the Wild Things Are. Other words for this unit include private, tame, adventure, rumpus, longing. As the students study the word frightened they also make a two-column list of things that would be frightening and things that would not be frightening. There is certainly nothing to be frightened about for these youngsters because vocabulary is alive and well in their kindergarten classes!

"Star" Books

An earlier post (“Star Vocabulary”) included a list of good read-aloud narrative books that we introduce each month in Kindergarten at Chets Creek. We call these books, “Star" Books. When we first began Readers’ Workshop in Kindergarten seven years ago we had trouble figuring out what we were suppose to be teaching in our mini-lessons and what we should be conferring about during the Work Time – especially early in the year when most kindergartners were not reading! A summer trip to study with Lucy Calkins at Columbia University’s Teachers College clarified the procedure for us. Our “Star" Book program is based on the research of Elizabeth Sulzby and the work of Lucy Calkins and her colleagues. We know that some of our Kindergartners at Chets Creek come into Kindergarten as conventional readers. For the other youngsters a strong oral language and reading readiness program is needed before they are ready for conventional reading. How could we provide that foundation within the framework of the Readers’ Workshop?

This is how our program is structured:

1. We begin by reading the Star Books each day as a good read aloud. This starts on the first day of school. We repeat these readings every day, introducing about 4 new books in a normal month. We read the books with intonation until the students can say much of the book with us. We also retell these stories with props and talk about the beginning, middle and end of each story. Each of these stories was chosen for its strong narrative story elements (characters, setting, problem, events, and solution). In the retelling below you can see the class acting out Caps for Sale as one student pretends to be the peddler with caps on top his head while the others pretend to be the michievous monkeys!

2. Each child selects a Star Book to include in his individual book bin so he can practice “reading” the story during his independent reading time of the Readers’ Workshop (which means that the teacher has multiple copies of each Star book).

3. After the students have heard the story for at least 4 times, they are ready to meet with the teacher during Work Time for an individual conference. During the conference the teacher gives the child a Star Book and asks him to “read” the book. Of course the teacher is expecting the child to orally retell the story as he turns each page.

4. As the child retells the story, the teacher uses the Kindergarten Pre-emergent Reading Scale to decide the level of the retelling. As children hear the stories and practice during Work Time, their retellings begin to have more and more detail and they move from one level up to the next.

5. The teacher gathers children that are reading at the same level into small groups and works with them during the Work Time to lift their retellings to the next level.

6. When children reach Level 7 on the Pre-emergent Reading Scale and have made the letter-sound connection in writing, they are ready for conventional reading and are given the DRA (Developmental Reading Assessment) or a running record.

Through this series of steps kindergarten teachers know quickly who is ready for conventional reading and who is not. Teachers identify the level of each child’s oral retelling and that drives instruction for the mini-lesson, small group work and individual conferences during the Work Time. This procedure has proven highly successful for our kindergartners.

One of the surprising benefits of this program has been how well our students are able to write retellings later in the year. We believe that the detail and length of the written retellings later in the year is a direct result of the oral language retellings early in the year!

Star Vocabulary

Kindergarten teachers formed their own professional learning community and have been working on their own Vocabulary unit over the summer. The Vocabulary Study corresponds with literature that they typically introduce in Kindergarten. You will recognize each of these well-loved stories! Below is the words that will be taught for each book.

Caps for Sale (see activity to the right)
disturb – ordinary – imitate – refreshed – upset – mischievous
 
Three Billy Goats Gruffmeadow – gobble – villain – creak – hooves – cunning

Where the Wild Things Are
private – tame – adventure – frighten – rumpus – longing

Goldilocks and the Three Bearstempting – gruff – enraged – necessary – shrill - terrified

Harry, the Dirty Dogclever – dashed – disguise – furiously – lovingly – adventurous

Red Riding Hoodconsiderate, delighted, devious., horrid, alarmed, naive

A Pocket for Corduroypatiently –– hesitating – dilemma –– tumbled – damp – sidetracked

Peter’s Chairfussing – rascal – jealous – arranged – cradle – cooperate
 
Mop Top
soaring - floppy - stubborn - vacant - stumbled - thrilled

Frederick
abandon – gather – daydream – anxious – blush – comfort

The Little Red Hen
eager – scampered – selfish – ripe – cozy – lazy

Jack and the Beanstalkprecious - nonsense - underhanded - cackle - tidy - panic

The Gingerbread Boy
crumble – strut – sly – sniff – proud - curious

Big Alrescue – tangled –– enormous - clumsy – fierce –daring

Mike Mulligan and His Steam Shovel
cellar – skyscraper – efficient – settled – straightened – resourceful

The lessons for the vocabulary are based on suggested vocabulary activities from Beck and McKeoen's Bringing Words to Life. All Chets Creek Kindergarten teachers will be using the unit as an integrated part of their Skills Block. Much of our professional development this first half of the year will be bringing experiences with the vocabulary activities back to the table each week so that we can discuss and edit the unit to lift it to the next level.

PLC...and the beat goes on...

Our Summer PLC (Professional Learning Community) met again today. Six kindergarten teachers continue to study vocabulary and write activities around their favorite read-alouds that they will field test next year. Haley Alvarado displayed her work today so that we could all discuss activities and make suggestions. As we already knew, six heads are so much better than one! The only problem, of course, is that collaboration is much more time-consuming that working alone. After we discussed, clarified, and brainstormed, we will once again work alone to make the best use of limited time, coming back together as we complete more of the work. Debbie Harbour would really like for us to have pictures for each of the words, which makes sense as we think about all of our learners. She has been searching the web for just the right pictures. It's not unusual in this group for someone to have an idea and be willing to do the work to make it happen.

What is so inspiring about this work is that it's easier when we work together. It is helping each of us learn more about vocabulary which is turn will make each of us a better teacher next year. This is a group that has been learning together for a while so this is a trusting, safe place to learn. It's okay to say that you don't know or you don't understand. It's okay to ask for help. It's okay to really like working because you are passionate about getting better so that your students get the best possible you that you can be. I guess what I love the most about this group is that they are each trying to be the teacher that they would want their own child to have. It doesn't get any better than that!

Summer happenings

Kindergarten teachers do not sleep in the summer. They certainly enjoy the break, but there is a group of six teachers at Chets Creek (Haley Alvarado, Elizabeth Conte, Randi Timmons, Debbie Harbour, Maria Mallon and me) that have been inspired by Maria Mallon to work on a vocabulary unit that uses the work of Beck and McKeown to infuse vocabulary strategies into a a set of read aloud books that they all use in kindergarten. They have looked at Beck and McKeown's Text Talk and also at the America's Choice vocabulary units. This is a group of "looping" teachers who make the kindergarten-first grade loop year after year. This next year they will be back in kindergarten. They have formed their own professional learning community. It was Maria's brain child last year that they use their kindergarten "Star Books" (read aloud books) to develop vocabulary. They have each taken 2-3 book titles and have committed to writing activities that will be shared and then revised by them all next year. They have been meeting for half a year - studying together and working out the division of labor and the framework for the lessons. They have chosen six "tier two" words for each of the books, four words that are used in the book and two that are inferred for each book. I have just finished a template for the activities and they will be working on the activities independently until we all meet together in mid-June to share our work. As the work becomes available, they will share it on this web site. Others may want to try their draft activities and are welcome to comment as the manuscript changes and improves with use.

This is really a professional learning community at its best. Teachers who come together because they want to learn from each other. Teachers who push each other to be better than any of them could be independently. Stay tuned to see how it all turns out.