Literacy Stations

Today was a very exciting day for the Kindergartners because today was the first day of Literacy Stations! Literacy Stations is about 30 minutes each day 3 days a week. That equals out to 2 stations per day your child will be going to. During this time your child will be going to a specific station to work on specific targeted tasks. Literacy Stations is an opportunity for your child's needs to be met at their own level. Children can use this time to challenge their own learning. A brief description of the stations is below. Be sure to ask your child what stations they went to today.
1.Writing Station-Children will be practicing a handwriting, personal narratives, letters, post cards, lists,etc. This can be an extension to what we are working on in Writer's Workshop or also allows children to practice their handwriting skills.
2. Word Work Station-Children will be working on different word work skills such as word families, rhyming, sounds, sight words, etc.
3. Bookmaking Station- At this station children will be making a book to add to their book box. These books highlight sight words we are practicing. When children are done making the book they may read out of their book box until time is up.
4. Library Station-At the library station children practice different skills such as working with fiction/mom-fiction books, finding specific words, reading specific themed books. They will also be using different fun tools to help them read such as fun glasses, pointers, etc. Today we read in partners and individually and searched for punctuation.

5. Listening Station- At this station children will be listening to a story on CD and then doing a response to it. For example, this week children are listening to a story and then drawing and labeling the characters from the story.

6. Read and Write the Room-At this station children will be going around the room with specific tasks that will be asking them to either read or write words they see in the room. For example, their task may be to go around and make a list of all the 3-letter and 4-letter words. Or they may be asked to use pointers to find specific sight words and read them. Today children used clipboards and walked around the room and recorded words they found.

Exploring Wood

Our current science kit that we are exploring is Wood and Paper.  We are focusing on wood at the moment.  In this kit children learn about wood and trees, properties of wood, how different things are made of wood, and how people can change wood.  Children have observed closely different things made of wood, compared and contrasted different types of wood, learned about items in our world that are made from wood and today we learned one way to change wood. 

Each child was given a piece of sandpaper and a wood block.  We talked about how when you buy a wood chair or blocks you can't just go to the woods and pick these things out.  There is a process that occurs from the time that the object begins as a tree and then ends up as a chair.  Children made observations of thier block prior to sanding.  We then spent some time sanding our wood and changing the shape and feel.  Children found that when they sanded fast, they created more sawdust.  They noticed that sandpaper worked best for changing the wood because it was rough.  They also noticed how smooth they could make the wood and how they could round the corners. After our woodworkers spent time sanding, we reflected on what we saw and documented this in our Thinking Notebooks. 

Mitten Retelling

Today the boys and girls made puppets and a mitten prop to aide them in retelling the popular folktale, "The Mitten."  We read several versions of the story and talked about the characters, setting, and sequence of events.  As a class we used our props to retell the story together.  Then the kids partnered up and practiced retelling the story with thier partner.  Retelling familiar stories helps deepen the understanding of the text.  The children are becoming great story tellers!

Polar Express Day

The last day before Winter Break was very magical in Kindergarten!  The boys and girls wore their pajamas to school and as they walked into our classroom, they saw that our tables and chairs had been transformed into a train.  The children pretended to be fast asleep and when they heard the train whistle they got to wake up, get thier train ticket punch and board our very own Polar Express.  We pretended that we also were traveling to the North Pole.  The kids watched the movie while snuggling stuffed animals and enjoying a Polar Express trail mix of marshmallows, chocolate chips and golden graham cereal.  Later in the day we went to the cafeteria/gym and enjoyed our all school Holiday Sing-a-long.  The Kindergartners led the school in the Rudolph song.  It was a great way to end 2012!