Wild Things!

Each year, the teachers have a theme-related "wow" on their first day back, so last Monday teachers went on a scavenger hunt at the Jacksonville Zoo.  Then the students have their own "wow" on their first day back, so today we were treated to a Sensory Safari exhibit to go with our theme of  Taking a Walk on the Wild Side.  It was a "don't leave the school" field trip! Sensory Safari uses donated and borrowed animal mounts, skins, skulls and horns to provide a display of small and large animals.  Take a look at our amazing tour!

Small Moment at the Farm

Lucy Calkins talks about children learning to write about small moments instead of bed-to-bed stories that just tell a sequence of events from the time they get up in the morning until they go to bed in the evening. Our field trip to the farm last week was the perfect example for the children to stop thinking about long, all day stories and just think about a small moment that they could blow up. As we talked about the farm, we talked about each of the things we did - beginning with putting our lunches in the coolers and putting on our name tags to taking the long ride on the bus and then going through the corn maze and then the hayride to see pumpkins and sunflowers ... until we loaded the bus back home and fell asleep! We talked to the children about thinking about a small moment during the day instead of trying to tell everything we did. To emphasize that, we put photographs of moments at the farm onto writing paper and asked each child to choose a favorite moment from a photograph to write about. It was such a great way to explain to the children that we want them to write a lot about one event instead of a list or series of events. Mrs. Ruark modeled with the story about jumping on the corn popper and all the fun she had. She did leave out the part about almost wetting her pants, but I still think the children would have enjoyed that part too! While the writing may still not be quite as deep as we'd like or have as much detail as we'd like, they do seem to be getting the point!

When my class went on the playground I went in the popcorn box and I was excited that I buried Tanner and Jesse. And I played that I was a monster under the water

but it was wasn't really water. And I played and played and played and I was so excited until my pants fell off.

And here is another example of a small moment:

My class went to the farm. And we got to go on a hayride. And it was fun. We saw big sunflowers and big white and normal orange pumpkins and I was in the sun. They call it a hayride?Maybe because it has hay for the seat to sit on. Maybe for another reason. I don't know. But they call it a hayride.

Humane Society Visits

Today Meagan from the Jacksonville Humane Society visited Chets Creek kindergartners. The children learned about what dogs need, about the Humane Society in general and about how to approach a dog that they do not know. Many of the kindergarten classes are collecting cat and dog food, animal bowls, brushes and blankets to donate to the Humane Society as part of their holiday service project. Many of the children returned to class and wrote about what they had learned today from this shared experience.

I pet the dog.

He was soft.

I learned that he

did tricks.

The dog was happy.

I was eager to see

the dog do tricks.

Abigail's picture matches her words as it shows the children in line waiting to pet Noodles, the Humane Society dog, at the end of the assembly. You will notice that Abigail also got a sticker for using the word "eager" which is a vocabulary word from our "Star Vocabulary" curriculum!

Writing about the Field Trip

One of the reasons that we take field trips in Kindergarten is so that our children will have shared experiences to write about. So... children across the grade level have been writing about their day at the Diamond D Ranch. Below are some examples of the writing in a single class. The children were given half sheets of paper and encouraged to write about a single event on each half sheet. After working for a few days, each child stapled his single pages into a booklet titled "My First Field Trip."

I went on the bus. It was good.

My favorite part was when I fed the cows.

...and I went on the bounce house.

I was brave.

...and I rode on the horses.

After the children completed their books, they were taught how to give compliments and suggestions. The teacher divided the children into partner groups so they could practice rereading their work and also practice giving and getting compliments and suggestions. They were taking the first steps of learning the rituals and routines around peer editing.

From another kinder class (Ms. Lewis) comes this sample of writing about the common shared experience of our field trip to the Diamond D Ranch.We went on a

field trip to Diamond D

and my favorite

part was feeding

the animals. There were

goats and it tickled

my hand. The farmer

game me the food.

I fed the

animals by putting

my hand in the

gate. I did

it lots of times.

Field Trip Shirts

Each Kindergarten class orders its own field trip shirts. Each class is a different color so that a teacher can easily identify her class on a trip. The tee-shirts are kept at school to make sure they are worn on field trip days and then sent home after the last field trip to keep. What I love about the shirts is that on the back are 100 sight words! As children are waiting in line they can look on the shirt of the child in front of them as the teachers play games - Find the word that rhymes with fan (can). Find a word that means look (see). Find a word that is the opposite of before (after). When the shirts go home for the summer, parents have a mini-Skills block - a great list of words to practice over the summer to get ready for first grade! Now this is a GREAT idea!

Fire Safety Week

This is Fire Safety Week so Kindergarten Team Leader Debbie Harbour arranged for three fire fighters to visit Chet’s Kindergartners. In the school’s Dining Room the teachers staged a dark house with a tissue paper fire and a fog machine as smoke! Debbie pretended to be asleep as the three fire fighters came in low to the ground to rescue her! The kids loved it! After the simulation the fire fighters answered questions stressing the 911 phone number for emergencies, having a family meeting place outside in case of fire, and “stop, drop, and roll!”

Then it was out to the fire engine for a tour of the big red engine. Students loved seeing the engine and all of the fire fighter's gear.

Students went back to class to write about what they had learned and to write thank you notes.

Thank you Stations 41 from _____. I learned if you have fire on you, "Stop, drop and roll!"

Kindergartners were given the homework assignment of asking their parents to check the batteries in their fire alarms. In my class, 20 students returned this morning with a note about checking their fire alarm and one even told us that the batteries in his alarm needed to be changed and his mother said he may have saved the family’s life! This is live research, non-fiction information meant to save lives - Social Studies at its best! Wonder how many little fire fighters were sitting in the audience today?

Field Trip: Pow Wow

Like all schools, Chets Creek Kindergarten includes field experiences in its learning opportunities. The first such experience this year for kindergartners was at the FCCJ Theatre where students had an opportunity to watch Native Americans dance and sing. Some of the children were riding the bus for the first time or sitting in a theatre for a live performance for the first time. The kindergartner sitting next to me wanted to know when we were going to get popcorn when we first sat down in the theatre! However, the actual information of this field trip is most important to this group of youngsters because they will soon be deeply involved in a Native American unit and will refer back to the music and dancing that they heard today over and over.
About six years ago Kindergarten teachers became uncomfortable with their generic "Indian" Pow Wow celebration around Thanksgiving where all the little "Indians" wore brown pillowcase garb with feathers and pounded homemade drums. The teachers began researching Native American tribes as a professional learning community and decided that each class would research a specific tribe and bring those traditions to our annual Pow Wow celebration. That decision to bring more authentic experiences to our children led to the field trip today. Today the students got their first taste of what a Pow Wow looks like and sounds like. As always, when we begin this unit of study, I am impressed with the teachers willingness to go the extra mile to teach our youngest children how to research and how much they care about getting the "real" information. I am also impressed with the Native Americans' deep spiritual connection with the Earth and their understanding that they are stewards of our natural resources. This year their message particularly resonates with our Kindergarten.