I can produce and expand a complete sentence

 

 

I can produce and expand a

complete sentence!

Sounds simple enough huh? While reviewing my students' writing this week, I was reminded to practice what I "teach". Meaning that I stress "listening" to your students and promoting language skills to my intern teachers, and at professional development workshops for my colleagues. It was obvious I was taking simple language skills for granted and I must allow "Vygotsky's" presence to surface even if we backed up several steps. The common error was poor oral sentence structure, thus their writing mirrored this stage. I used a simple tree map to guide their thinking and building sentences orally. This was much longer than a mini lesson, however I felt it important to strengthen their language if I ever intended to "expand", as the standard states, complete sentences. Day 1 also included students writing ONE sentence using the "can" column. To reinforce the language, the ticket to get started was "tell me your sentence". Ah ha! I quickly identified those with misconceptions and formed a small writing group for this session. Day 2, we revisited the map in small groups. Each student had a map, filled in a few choices from the class map, ( not really original independent writing I know, but necessary) ORALLY made a sentence, and then wrote a sentence or sentences using the map, on their paper. Yes I felt like I was pulling teeth, but I smiled as I saw the light "come on" for several students as they realized they had actually produced a complete sentence! whew....expanding will come AFTER Thanksgiving!

Making connections with text to text

We are working on connecting text to text. Attached is a simple organizer I made with space for writing to help students record their answers. Hope you find it helpful.

https://docs.google.com/document/pub?id=1YBL09bsYHCxtrW5jukD3QhlQ4Zh2abn2d0O838G-akI

I love you to Pieces!

This project was a test of fitting the pieces together! Trying to be creative and SIMPLE, we(my awesome co-teacher, Christina Beck and I) finally decided to make magnetic frames for valentines day. On first attempt we sprayed the puzzle pieces pink, red and white. The students glued them on the outer part of a heart shape from the Ellison Die cuts. While they were really attractive with the various "love shades" for this time of year it somehow just didn't fit together as I had envisioned as we could see the tag board. To make it simple...  you know....our original plan, I sprayed the finished frames red. Why didn't we think of that to begin with????? A quick photo from my phone camera in grayscale filled the frames. Some of the girls posed and made hearts with their hands for a "lovely" touch! Add magnetic tape to the back. Place in an envelope with a handmade card that says" I love you to pieces!"  Happy Valentines Day! Dont you just love kindergarten?

Twister-Boggle,maybe?

I am not sure what we should call it but with a "spin-off" from Boggle, the word game, my para-pro aka co-teacher and I used the letters from this week's selected sight word list to make a grid on the floor. After using contact paper to adhere them to the floor I decided to give it a try. While I was hopping and stepping from letter to letter to spell a word, a little girl walked up and said "Or you could just do this...." as she stepped on two letters and tagged a third one with her hand. " You know, like Twister!" she said. Uh huh... I thought. So, there you have it.. Once again we follow the lead of our students! Love it when that happens! However they choose to use it, I am excited to have another way to practice recognizing and spelling sight words. (Although the bubble letters are cute and attractive, we really should have used lowercase letters...a definite change for next week!).

Colorful Learning

Paint chips seem to be the new fad for crafts and classroom learning tools. I spotted some at Lowes' that have a window. We used these with craft sticks we already had in the room and "ta-da" a quick activity for word family practice. So easy to adapt this idea to final consonants, blends, numerals to number words, etc. The best part about this activity /center.... it was free! How do you use paint chips in your room? Please share!

In a predicament!

As part of our shadows and light activities this week we took a twist on a graph and incorporated prediction. Usually we just predict if we think the groundhog will or will not see his shadow. I am all about challanges this year. So, after discussing the grand performance of  Mr. Groundhog coming out of his burrow, the students had to decide if they wanted sunny or cloudy weather on February 2. The conversation among them was most interesting as they began to think about their prediction of having to choose unpopular weather, their explanations, and how it led to inductive reasoning with cause and effect. I know the children will be full of excitement tomorrow...( Its raining here tonight!)

Me and my shadow....

With groundhog day approaching what better science objective to teach this week than observing the changes in the day and night sky? We enjoyed "following" the sun this week as we noted the various positions during the day. Fortunately, we  had beautiful South Georgia weather this week and the children found much delight in watching their shadows. This was a great way to reinforce positions, length(we made long and short shadows) light and darkness, and of course welcome the new month of February with the anticipation of Ground Hog day. Hope you get a chance to enjoy sunny days soon too!