That statement has always stuck with me and when I reflect after each day, using our experiences and learning to plan for the next day, I always keep that statement in mind. While I know the school day is long for young children, I also feel like our time is limited - so we must not waste it. We must also ensure that all of our experiences are connected, meaningful, and important - time is valuable and should be used in meaningful and authentic ways. It is essential to encourage learning as a challenging and joyful exploration - an exploration is never a waste.
Our morning meeting provides rich learning opportunities for the whole class. Our greeting is often a "find your match" greeting, an interactive and playful way for children to practice their developing reading skills. I pass out the pieces and sing, find and find and find your match now, find and find and find your match now, go and find your match!
The Kindergarteners may be looking for a sight word match, a letter ID and sound match, a sentence match, or a rhyming match. This week, we used a sentence including color words. These words later connected to our shared read aloud as well as sentence building and reading. A "find your match" greeting is a way to differentiate your teaching - I know what students are working on and provide the part of the match that meets their needs.
In the below photographs, children find their match for a color word sentence.
The morning message is a vital teaching tool and should always be part of the start of a school day - especially in Kindergarten. In the below photographs, children first filled in missing words and then circled noticings. We discussed letter partnerships - consonant digraphs - we know th works together to make the th sound. Many of the children know these partnerships and eagerly search for them, for other children, the question might be; What do you notice about the words with and the?
Following our message work, children use the pointer to point to and read the morning message.
Fundations is one part of the children's building of foundational literacy skills. We review and practice letter names and sounds every day, but also integrate sentence building and reading into our work. On this morning, we used the sentences from our shared read aloud. The children built and read the sentences. Rereading these sentences helps to make our reading stronger!
I then use the transition from Fundations to snack as an additional learning opportunity. In the below photographs, I invited one child at a time to the front to point to a word in the sentence, before going to retrieve their morning snack. Again, this is differentiated based on the individual child - while still working as a whole group.
During academic choice, one of our new choices is building sight words. We have practiced building letters, words, and sentences. As with all of our new choices, children were eager and excited to play. Following choice, I invited KC and OM to model engaging with our new choice and asked their peers to provide questions and comments.
I observed KC organize the sight word cards into two stacks - one stack of words he had built and one stack of words he hadn't built. KC has an appreciation for organization, but he also wanted to make his completed work visible. This made me think of the need for a checklist. After the child reads and builds a sight word, they find it on the list and either highlight it or put a check next to it. Another way to expand on this experience, would be to encourage children to grab a white board or piece of paper and record the words they have built. For a class passionate about building and literacy, the building of sight words has been joyfully embraced!
During reading workshop, readers dove deep into their personal libraries to find sight words in their favorite storybooks, nonfiction books, and patterned books. Again, children eagerly embraced the challenge of being a sight word detective, of finding words they know.
This post provides a glimpse into some of our time together. I used a literacy lens for this post, but carefully woven into each moment are also ongoing opportunities for learning about community; what it means to be a helpful peer and recognizing the the choices you make influence others. Math concepts are also woven to all of these moments - How many letters in the word? How many words in the sentence? What was the longest word you built? The shortest word?
DON'T WASTE THEIR TIME.
As part of this belief, a young child's learning should be playful and fun, engaging and exciting, authentic and meaningful. They should be supported in recognizing connections across all content areas. Their time should always be full of love - a love for learning and a love for their community.
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