spanish class

On Friday, Kristen and Lyla engaged the children in song and movement. They shared an alphabet book about Guatemala, talking about the importance of traditional crafts and art. With an array of colorful materials, Kristen modeled making a Guatemalan worry doll; a doll to tell your worries to and then to hide, ensuring your worries will be forgotten. The children worked carefully on the oval rug and loved the experience. GK suggested that making worry dolls should be a new choice for the afternoon - and it was. Once again, Spanish Class was the highlight of our week!

 

 

 

 

academic choice

Academic choice continues to be the favorite part in our day - except for playing on the big playground, of course. On Tuesday the Kindergarteners voted for their next celebration, 11 of the students voted for extra choice. Choice is an opportunity to revisit or continue, to rebuild or start new. It is a time to create Pete the Cat books, build a bridge, invite a friend to be part of letter memory, engage with a shape puzzle, or write kind notes. It is a time to engage in the richest and most meaningful learning - through play.  





In small and large building, the children continue to build detailed structures, telling the story behind each carefully and thoughtfully placed piece of scrap wood, block, stone, or acorn. Our small building has transformed into animal homes this year, little animals nestle into rock burrows and follow patterned paths of gems and planks. Once a structure has developed, the children are asked to draw their structure and share their story. For the group of children last year, small building was an invitation to create designs with natural materials. This year, there is a shared interest in animal habitats and play scripts about little chipmunks, beavers, and foxes.

 

 

 

Beading offers a creative and colorful fine motor experience. Children are asked to count and record how many beads they used. Often, there is an exploration of patterns and colors. Their beaded sculptures hang above the math table, helping to further define the space and invite conversation and reflection.

 

 

The Kindergarteners continue to write Pete the Cat books. Some are about Pete the Cat's Family and others have been about Pete the Cat and his Space Travels. Their drawings have been rich with detail, color, and humor. Grandma and Grandpa Pete have been favorite characters in most of their books!

 

During recent conferences, children began the conversation about our dramatic play space, wondering if we should open it. Last year the Kindergarteners were passionate about the dramatic play space, quickly turning it into pizza put. The Kindergarteners this year have been more invested in other choices, never asking about the dramatic play space, never quietly crawling under the stop sign to investigate.

Finally they seemed to notice and recommended we open it. Of course, before we open a space, we must ensure there are labels and every material has a home. On Thursday, TW, AM and IM chose to take on the responsibility of making labels for our dramatic play space. They named it the Kindergarten Kitchen or Kindergarten Restaurant, as it can be both. When writing their own labels the children took ownership of the space. They used a big alphabet book to support their sound knowledge, stretching out words and recording each letter. They cut and taped the labels, supporting the future play of all of their peers.

 

 


On Friday during academic choice, I left a piece of chart paper up about friendship - earlier in the afternoon I had recorded children's ideas about friendship and we added the word friend to our word library. I let the children know that if they wanted to add on to our list of ideas about friendship, they could briefly leave their choice and record their feelings on the chart paper. WM and CM eagerly left their choices to work together. The friendship between WM and CM has been a joy to observe. Recently when cleaning up at the end of the day, I've found little scraps of paper with tiny print; Calla and Whitney are bff's. I love you. You are my best friend. Hi. Love.

It seemed fitting they would share their sweet feelings about friendship together and draw a picture of the two of the them on the bottom of our reflections.

 

spring is here

With sunshine, warmer temperatures, and a little rain this past week, it finally felt like spring. I introduced a spring poem early in the week and invited the children to read it together. Following our choral read, they used all that they know to examine the poem closely - circling and underlining blends, digraphs, vowels, sight words and ending rhymes. After working as a whole group, each child used highlighters and black pens to circle and underline noticings on their own small copy of the poem.

Following their independent work we came back together and the children eagerly took turns reading the large poem out loud to their peers. When asked how it felt to read the poem to an audience, the children responded; proud, happy, great. The excitement over highlighting blends and noting long and short vowels continues to amaze me - there is a shared love and curiosity for language in our classroom. So many of our experiences come from the children's interests. Following our morning message work, one child said, "I just LOVE highlighting words!"

The following morning we revisited our poem by using beginning blends to "guess" the covered word. Again, the children engaged in a playful game with language, getting their mouths ready for beginning blends and reading the covered words as they quickly pulled the sticky notes away!

 

 

 

 

 

student led conferences

The children have been preparing for their student led conferences throughout the week. During their conferences, they had a list of learning and experiences to share and celebrate with their families;

- share their self-reflection

- tour our classroom

- read a piece of their informational writing

- share a book from their personal library

- share work from their math journal

- teach a math game

- add on to our small and large community structures

As I listened in on the conferences, all of the children and families talked about and celebrated their recent self-portraits, captivated by the bright colors and detailed facial expressions. Older and younger siblings explored the loft and eagerly engaged in small and large building. Many older siblings shared their favorite Kindergarten memories. A few soon-to-be Kindergarteners took a quick walk through the room, too. One child said, "When I'm in Kindergarten, I'm going to have fun!" There was a strong sense of community in all of the conversations and conferences.

Below is a small collection of photographs of the self-reflections we worked on during the week and photographs from the conferences. 

Thank you for taking the time to celebrate your child's hard work and love for school!

 

 

 

 

 

 

Below, a younger sibling explores the small building materials. Self-portraits from the fall and fragile fairy houses finally go home - all of the Kindergarteners expressed an incredible excitement and joy to finally bring their fairy houses home!

 

In the below photographs, children read the morning message to their families, share their informational writing and read books from their personal libraries!