Making Words

We have been using an old "tried and true" intervention designed by Patricia Cunningham and Dorothy Hall for quite some time. However, it is new to Duval County and is a fun part of our daily Skills Block.  Students get to be letters and then to stand side by side to make the word.  The student on the carpet help the students, and especially like to "help" if some of the students end up in the wrong place!

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Close Reading Conversation continues...

Last week we had the county's Director of K-2 Reading come and do a demonstration lesson for our kindergarten teachers.  We don't usually get to watch lessons from outside of our school, so this was a treat.  Besides, how many Directors of Reading do you know that would come into a kinder class and demo a lesson?

This week our reading coach, Melanie Holtsman, took the big leap and taught a different type close reading lesson in the same kindergarten class.  Melanie was not a kindergarten teacher but she is a risk taker and willing to put herself out there for the greater good.  As you can see from her video, she is a natural and the age of the students really doesn't matter.  She's simply a master teacher. She crafted her lesson around her learning from the Summer Institute at Teachers' College so she used the idea of visual text - in other words, looking at pictures!  Now doesn't that make sense?  What I notice when I watch the video is this new verbiage she uses,  like, "I seem to think... "  "I'm starting to think..." "My thinking is growing and changing..."  She also asks for evidence, evidence, evidence. That's what I see as different so that she moves the students into deeper thinking about the pictures - uh, excuse me - visual text!

Make sure to go to Melanie's blog and let her know what you think about the lesson.  Before the lesson, Melanie told me she'd probably pass out, but looks like she managed pretty well!  Thank you Melanie!

Read for the Record

On October 3 we joined classrooms across the country to Read for the Record.  The program identifies a book each year and then asks teachers all across the country to read the book on the very same day.
This year's book, Otis, was special for many reasons.  First of all, it has been a Chets Creek Book of the Month - one of the very special books that our Principal chooses and reads with us.  However, this year's kindergartners have not heard the book because they are new to our school this year, so it was a very special treat to be reading a book that teachers already love.

The other reason that this book is special is because Duval County dedicated the reading of this book this year to Lisa Wells.  Lisa passed away very suddenly and unexpectedly.  She was a beautiful blond who was walking sunshine.  I met her as a District Reading Specialist and she was always the person I called when I had a question or something just didn't seem right.  She knew more about literacy and early childhood education than anyone I have worked with in the county.  Lisa had that rare blend of humor and caring.  She could laugh about the absurdities and she cared about children in a genuine, heartfelt way.  I knew I would always get perspective from Lisa.  For many years Lisa would come to Chets Creek during Read for the Record day because she knew we would be doing something fun.  When The Very Hungry Caterpillar was the book of choice, she loaned me her very used caterpillar so I could make patterns for all of our kindergarten teachers. She had recently returned to the classroom to teach first grade.  I remember when she e-mailed me about her decision, all I could think about was how fortunate that group of students would be and what a grave loss it would be to the district.  As I watched the children listen to this endearing story this week, I couldn't help but think Lisa's presence filled our room, as it must have for so many classrooms on that day.  I could see her dancing and laughing and telling us the funniest stories.  She was a blessing in my life.  Her love of literacy was her legacy to me and to so many others.  We miss you, Lisa...

Launching the Writers' Workshop in Kindergarten

We had hoped that our county would adopt Lucy Calkins new grade specific Writing Units. However, when they didn't we decided to buy them through school funds and they have arrived!  It has been so exciting to be our Kindergarten Writers' Workshop with Calkins' first Launching book.  We are so proud of our kindergartners as they are "fancying up" this first unit in writing - Teaching Books.  The children have been writing books about things they know a lot about and let me tell you, they know a lot of stuff!  We have worked up to 15 minutes of quiet independent writing each day.  We know how to close our eyes and think about a topic, how to select the right paper for what we want to write, how to plan by touching each page and thinking about what we want to say,  how to start with a picture and add details, how to add words by stretching them out and writing the sounds that we hear, how to use the word wall (on the ceiling!) how to add labels to our pictures,  how to ask questions and get suggestions from a partner, how to staple our pages together, how to use a date stamp and how to put our first and last name on our books.  We have become a busy community of writers!  Thank you, Lucy Calkins!

Close Reading in Kindergarten

Today we were treated to a demonstration lesson by Duval County's K-2 Reading Director, Katie Moeller.  How fortunate we are to have a Director of Reading that is willing to come into a classroom and actually demonstrate with children (and kindergartners at that!) as she teaches teachers.  Today's essential question was around a subject that our kindergarten teachers have been working with since the beginning of school, "What does close reading look like in kindergarten?" 

Today's lesson came from an exemplar K-2 lesson from the website Achieve the Core around a poem, "The Wind" by James Reeves.  The poem was written out for the kindergartners without the title (which gives away the main idea of the poem).  This "unit" of lessons would be presented over many days as the students look at small portions of the text each day.  However, today we were shown several different ways to use the text and then left with a lesson plan full of additional ideas. 

There were so many examples of just good teaching such as calling on students randomly, using "turn and talk" with a partner, asking for text evidence, using thumbs up for a quick assessment, teaching vocabulary, etc., not to mention the depth of the questioning that moves us toward the Core. 

Chets Creek kinder teachers have committed to teaching this lesson and some of its extensions so that they can come together again and discuss successes and challenges.  This is the idea of lesson study.  What a great way to spend a morning - learning with some of my favorite colleagues!

Scientific Writing in K

Over the past week our class has been investigating the tools scientists use. We have discussed how and why scientists use goggles to protect their eyes, balance scales to compare weight, hand lenses to magnify objects, as well as various other tools.

Yesterday the students were each given a thermometer and were asked to observe it by using their five senses.  We then investigated the effects of hot and cold (using a cup of ice and the sun) on thermometers and how to read the thermometer. Today we had a group discussion on how we can use thermometers. We talked about how our moms and dads place a thermometer in our mouths when we are sick. We talked about how outdoor thermometers can help us figure out how to dress in the morning for school. We also talked about how mom and dad sometimes poke a thermometer in the turkey at Thanksgiving to tell if the meat is fully cooked so we don't get sick. At the end of our discussion the children were tasked with answering the essential question, How can we use a thermometer? in their Science Notebooks. At this early stage of kindergarten the children are writing in pictures but they are starting to show beginning stages of labeling words. The student pictures below show amazing detail of how well they grasped the concept of how thermometers can be used, as well as, the general understanding of how hot and cold as they refer to temperature.

This student shows Farenhiet and Celcius and includes the numbers associated with thermometer. He decided to show how we use a thermometer when we are sick so the smiley face and sad face represent if you are feeling well or feeling sick. His second page shows that the thermometer gets hot when someone is feeling ill and he shows this in the color red indicating hot. Above he is feeling better and no longer needs a thermometer. An amazing understanding of how thermometers work!

 

This student chose to represent her understanding of thermometers by drawing a picture of herself sick in bed but she also has begun to label her pictures as well. Here she spells thermometer "simo" and bed "bad". She also chooses the color red to represent hot for the rise in temperature when you are not feeling well. If you look closely you can see the thermometer sticking out of her mouth. So cute!

Finally, our last student decided to use the outside weather to show her understanding of how we utilize thermometers. On the left hand side of her drawing she shows that is it night time with stars in the sky and the little girl in the picture in her words "was not dressed appropriately and so she is cold". The thermometer numbers are in blue indicating cold and the little girl has a sad face. She also labels "DOK" for cold.  On the right hand side of the page it is day time with the sun shining with the little girl still wearing her pretty little dress. This time, however, she is much happier as the thermometer shows red around it labeled as "toH" showing hot. The middle of the thermometer shows red more than half way up indicating its hot outside. The little girl is smiling and happy. These students have a clear understanding of how and why we use thermometers. What an amazing job!

Predictable Charts!

Predictable charts are turned into single sheets
 and put in the independent reading bin so partners
 can read the charts to each other and together

We have been writing predictable charts which include each child's name, a sight word (likes) and a color word.  Today we converted that chart into a page to put in each child's Reading bin.  We practiced reading it with our partners - knee to knee, shoulder to shoulder and text in between.

It wasn't long before one of the partners noticed that "Adam likes blue" was written in red!  Good noticing!  Guess I'll have to give them red pens and let them play teacher and fix the mistake!