Guided Writing

Many days during guided reading, I find myself focusing more on writing than on reading with some of my groups. It is amazing how much writing will help move along many of the reading skills we are working on.

My lowest group, which is not quite ready for level A books, has been developing lots of great concepts of print through our daily interactive guided writing sessions. These writing lessons are nothing like our writing workshop time later in the day-this small group guided writing is focused on developing beginning reading and writing skills.

We have been working on writing our own little predictable books. I give them a blank book that just has pictures, and we write the text together. Click here to download a copy of the book we worked on writing today-called My Animal Book (even though the pictures are in color, I just print it in black and white and let them color the pictures in with crayons if they want).

The whole group opens up to the same page in the little book (we usually just write one page a day). Today we opened up to a page that has a cow in the picture. We decided to write the sentence "I see a cow." I help them choose the sentence because I want it to be simple and include some sight words that they know. This particular group already knew the sight words "I" and "a" and we just learned the word "see" last week-so the sentence we were writing was perfect practice!

The first thing we do is practice saying the sentence several times-this way we don't forget it! I always ask them to practice whispering it too! Then we clap or tap each word so that we get practice hearing the word breaks in sentences. Each word gets just one clap-this is not about syllables! Then we practice counting how many words-we hold our fingers up as we count. Finally we are ready to begin writing.

The first question I ask them is to point on their paper to where we will start writing. I definitely want to reinforce that we start on the left side of the page. Then I ask them to say the sentence "I see a cow" and tell me which word comes first. They practice writing the word "I" in the air with their finger (I check to make sure they are making the capital letter). Then they get to write the first word on their paper.

Next, we point to the word we wrote and read it. I ask them what word comes next. They tell me it is the word "see". Since this word is one of our new sight words, I ask them to practice it a few times on their practice page (this is just the back of the previous page which is blank). When I see that they are writing it correctly, I let them point to where they think it should go in their sentence (if they haven't left a space, we talk about that).

Then we point and read our sentence so far and I ask them what word comes next.  Since it is the word "a" and they all know how to write it, I don't make them use the practice page. We trace it once on the table with our finger, then they point to where they think it should go in their sentence. If they have pointed to the right spot (and left a space) I let them each write it in their book.

I then ask them to point to each word in their sentence and read it out loud so we can figure out what word comes next. The final word is "cow." Since this is not a word they know or a sight word, I am going to help them with this one. We work on saying the word slow together and hearing the first sound. I ask them to point to the letter on their alphabet chart that they hear at the beginning of cow. Some pointed to the "C" and some pointed to the "K" so I went ahead and told them that cow starts with "c" just like cat on their alphabet chart. Thankfully no one pointed to a letter that didn't make sense! Then they pointed on their paper where they thought the word should go. This was a great opportunity to talk about return sweep, since there was no more room on the first line and we had to start a second line to write the word cow.

To finish writing cow, I told them that an "o" was the next letter (I am not expecting them to be able to figure that out on their own at this point) and then they helped me figure out that there was a "w" sound at the end of the word and we wrote that. I asked them to point and read their page to see if their sentence was finished-they said all the words were there and thankfully one of my students reminded us to put the period at the end! Finally-after nearly 10 minutes we had written one whole sentence! It seriously takes a LOT of time-but it is SO worth it.

We were not done with our lesson though! I like to practice pointing and reading the sentence several times as a group and then I let them each show me individually. They like to use their pencils as pointers sometimes. Then we play little "games" with our sentence. Really I am just prompting them to demonstrate some concepts of print. I ask them a few questions like these:

• Point to the first word
• Point to the last word
• Point to where you start reading on this page. Where do you go next?
• Find a capital letter. Do you know what letter you found?
• Find a lowercase letter. Do you know what letter you found?
• Find the letter ____
• Find a space
• Find the period
• Find a word with 2 letters (or 3 letters, etc.)
• Find our sight word _____
• Find the word _______ (How do you know that is the word _____?)
• Find a word that begins with the letter _____
• Find a word that ends with the letter _____
• Point to the word _____. How many letter are in that word?
• Count how many words are in our sentence
• Count how many letters are in our sentence
• Count how many spaces are in our sentence
• Practice reading the sentence. Point under each word as you read it.

These little books make great writing practice-but also great reading practice. After we write them we use them as shared reading texts-and instead of looking at my big book or poetry chart like a usual shared reading session-each kid has their own little book to point to so everyone is engaged in the small group lesson! 

We also sometimes do some quick word work after we write and read these little books. For example, since today we were using the word "see" in our book, we practiced building the word with magnetic letters. We did lots of "mix & fix" (mixing up the letters and then fixing them to make the word "see" again). We also practiced writing the word "see" on our dry erase boards, locating the word "see" in our book, and reading the page we found the word "see" on to get practice with the word in context.

Whew! This turned out to be a long post! I promise this was just a quick 20 minute small group lesson though-and it was with my most struggling group of kinders-they did a great job! I'd love to hear how your small group literacy lessons are going!

Learning about Dia de Los Muertos

Last week was an exciting week in kindergarten. After all of the Halloween festivities at school on Monday, we picked right up with another celebration the next day. On Tuesday my students and I learned all about Dia de Los Muertos-The Day of the Dead. This is a holiday celebrated in Mexico, and it was a great opportunity to expose my students to another culture.

I have to thank Mrs. Parker for this idea-she shared some great resources on her blog. I began by sharing with my students a little bit about what the Day of the Dead is, and how people celebrate it. We discussed how this is not a scary holiday, but instead how it is a time where families can remember loved one that have passed away. Many of my students shared memories about relatives they missed, like grandmas and grandpas, that were no longer with them.

Even the skeletons associated with this holiday look festive to me! I didn't have any Day of the Dead books, so instead we read a past version of Scholastic News about Day of the Dead that Mrs. Parker recommended. You can find it here (the English version starts on page 5). It had pictures of the celebration and explained many of the traditions.

I set up a little Day of the Dead display for my students with some items I had collected. I happened to be visiting family in Chicago last weekend and had the chance to visit the wonderful National Museum of Mexican Art which was running an exhibit on the Day of the Dead. I snapped a few photos to share with my kids. The museum also had a woman making the little sugar skulls for Day of the Dead, so I picked up a set to bring to my class. I also visited a Mexican bakery where I found some of the special "pan de muertos" or bread of the dead. My students were very curious about this!

I downloaded the free skull mask here for my students to decorate. After they decorated their masks we attached them to popsicle sticks and had a bit of an impromptu parade around the classroom. We also enjoyed learning some Spanish words throughout the day. I then encouraged my students to take their masks home and teach their families about the Day of the Dead.

The Day After Halloween...

Wow-so glad it will be several years before Halloween is on a Monday again!! My students were wild yesterday-they'd clearly been up late the night before trick or treating and then eating tons of candy! I'm pretty sure that all they could think about was their Halloween candy....so we went with that!

 Two of my favorite books about Halloween candy are Harriet's Halloween Candy (Nancy Carlson's Neighborhood) and Julius's Candy Corn which is from Kevin's Henkes' set called: A Box of Treats: Five Little Picture Books about Lilly and Her Friends.

The kids really loved both of these books. Kevin Henkes' book about Julius is very simple-but has a great storyline about the little mouse stealing candy corn off the tops off all his mom's Halloween cupcakes. Harriet's Halloween Candy is about a dog that learns the hard way it is better to share Halloween candy than eat it all yourself!

Later, during math time, we made a candy graph. I had asked them all to bring in the wrapper from their favorite piece of Halloween candy, which we used for our graph. We decided to sort the candy wrappers by "chocolate candy" vs. "other candy" - but you could sort and graph candy tons of other ways as well. In fact, sorting candy is a math activity that kindergarteners LOVE! Since not everyone remembered to bring in a candy wrapper, we will keep adding to the graph today as more kids bring the wrappers in. It will give us some additional time to talk about the graph, which candy more students liked, which less students liked, how many liked chocolate candy, how many more like other candy, etc.

Hope you all survived the day after Halloween-and hopefully today will be much calmer!

Happy Halloween!

Hope you're having a great Halloween! Wow, what a day- the Halloween party and parade festivities at school have left me exhausted.

My "bat pup" and I are ready to sit back and wait for the trick-or-treaters!

More October Math Stations

I know I shared some of my math stations earlier in the month, but....October is a long month! So...here are some of the math stations my kindergarten students worked on last week. More pumpkins, bats, and monsters too!

Station 1: Pumpkin Patch

(Students roll the dice, and then cover up that many pumpkins on their math mat. First one to cover up all the pumpkins in their pumpkin patch wins. I used some orange bingo chips I happened to have, but you could also use little orange pom-poms or pumpkin erasers with this game. This darling free game is from Musings of Me-and she has tons of other terrific pumpkin math activities too!)

Station 2: Pumpkin Seed Counting Book

(My students loved reading this fun pumpkin counting book and coloring in the correct number of pumpkin seeds on the 10 frame on each page. Great for number review and reading practice! This fantastic and free book is from Fran at Kindergarten Crayons.)

Station 3: Spooky Numbers 1-12

(My students had already played the easier version of this game a few weeks ago, so I decided to let them all try out the harder version that goes all the way up to 12 (instead of 6). They loved it-and of course they all though they were so smart to be playing the harder game! They roll a 12-sided dice and trace the number they roll.  This game is from Mrs. Wills' Halloween Math Work Stations Pack.)

Station 4: Gone Batty

(Students take turns picking a card and counting how many moons are on the card. They then cover up the corresponding number on their game board with a bat eraser. Students especially loved when they got the special "gone batty" card that let them pick any number to cover up. This fun game is from Miss Kindergarten's set of Gone Batty Math Games-there are several different game boards and cards included to make this game more challenging.)

Station 5: Halloween More or Less Game

(Students each take a card and count how many pictures are on it. Then they spin the spinner and see if the person with more or less on their card gets to keep the cards. This was perfect because we have been learning about more or less in our math book this month! This cute game is from Mrs. Wills' Halloween Math Work Stations pack.)

Station 6: Halloween Eraser Patterns

(Students use all of those bat, ghost, and pumpkin erasers I got at Target to complete the pattern on their paper. Some of the patterns are very simple and others are a bit tricky-so  great way to differentiate! These fabulous and free pattern pages are from Nicole at The Kinder Kid.)

Station 7: How Many Pumpkins in the Pumpkin Patch?

Students choose a number card to clip to the top of their math mat, and then count out that many pumpkins to put in the pumpkin patch. I used pumpkin erasers but you could also use paper pumpkins. This awesome free game is from Confessions of a Homeschooler-and she has tons of other great pumpkin activities too! )

Station 8: Measure the Monsters

(Students measure the monsters with unifix cubes and then color in how many cubes tall each monster was on their paper. We haven't worked much on measurement yet, but the kids loved this! This game is from Mrs. Lee's Monster Madness Unit.)

Station 9: Monster Number Roll

(Students roll the dice and color in a monster on their paper with that number. Simple and fun! This game is from Mrs. Lee's Monster Madness Unit.)

Thank you to all of the fantastic bloggers who created these games-my students and I are thankful for your creativity-it sure is making math fun this year! Now I just need to prep some stations for November!

Read Write Sing!

I had an awesome afternoon yesterday browsing books with fellow kindergarten blogger Chrissy from Read Write Sing! You must check out her blog-she has tons of great ideas! It was so much fun to meet another blogger-and Chrissy is super nice!




Two kindergarten teachers can get into lots of trouble in a bookstore! I showed some serious restraint and only went home with four new books (and it was Barnes & Noble's teacher discount weekend- hooray!).

How Rocket Learned to Read
A darling book about a little bird that teaches a dog to read!

No More Monsters for Me! (I Can Read Book 1)
The perfect read aloud for our monster theme next week!

I Broke My Trunk! (An Elephant and Piggie Book)

 My students are obsessed with Mo Willems' Elephant and Piggie series!

Pigs Make Me Sneeze! (An Elephant and Piggie Book)

Another cute Elephant and Piggie Book to add to my collection!

It has been such a wonderful experience blogging these last few months and I am so grateful for all of my new blogging friends that inspire me with their amazing ideas-wish I could meet you all!

Alphabet Practice

While several of my reading groups are now reading leveled books, I still have two small groups that are working on the alphabet. The first group knows roughly half the letters in the alphabet, so we are really working hard on learning all of the letters. We are practicing reading the alphabet chart daily, and doing lots of letter sorting so they start noticing the different features of each letter. We have also been playing some fun little games.

One game we play involves them locating different letters. I will tell each student a letter and then they have to point to that letter on their alphabet chart. I can individualize this easily if there are certain letters I have been working on with the particular student. If they locate the letter correctly, I put a little pumpkin eraser on that letter on their chart-which they love!

Another game we have been playing is where they can point to any letter they want on their alphabet chart and tell me its name-if they do this correctly, then I let them take a little Halloween eraser to cover up that letter. These are similar skills, just in one game they are locating the letter and in one game they are generating the names of known letters so that they become more fluent with the alphabet.

My second reading group that is working on alphabet skills is a little more advanced. The students in this group know most of the letters in the alphabet, so we are not just reviewing the letters, but also working on developing knowledge of letter sounds. One game I play with this group is where I will make a letter sound (like mmmm) and then they have to point to the letter on their alphabet chart that makes that sound. If they do it correctly then I let them put a little ghost eraser on that letter of alphabet.

We have also been concentrating on hearing the first letter in words, so we've been playing a fun little game to go along with that. I have a pack of alphabet flashcards that I got at Target over the summer that I use for this game. I show the students a picture flashcard and they write down on their dry erase board the letter they think the word starts with. For example, in the photo below I showed them a picture of a turtle, we all said the word turtle together, and then I asked them to write the letter it begins with. Then I turn the flashcard around so they can see if the letter on the back matches the letter they wrote. They all did great and wrote the letter T! When they write the correct letter I let them take a little pumpkin eraser to put at the top of their dry erase board-it is amazingly motivating for them since this is a challenging game!

I really encourage them to refer to the alphabet chart for help if they get stuck. So, if they weren't sure what turtle started with, I would ask them to think about what picture on their alphabet chart started the same way, hoping they would think "Oh, turtle starts like tiger on my alphabet chart, so they both must begin with the letter T." I like how with this game they are not just working on hearing sounds, but also writing the letters as well. Soon I hope to move on to middle and ending sounds and have them write down several letters they hear in each word.

You might notice in my photos that I sometimes use file folders that I have cut in half as little "privacy screens" between each student at my table. We don't use these everyday, however this just makes things easier so that I can say something like "Point to the letter B" and they have to do the work themselves instead of just looking to see what letter their neighbor is pointing to on the alphabet chart. Another thing I do is keep little baskets on my guided reading table with a dry erase marker an eraser in each so that when we use the dry erase boards everyone has all the materials they need in their little basket.

I would definitely recommend the alphabet charts I use in my classroom. I got them years ago from Teaching Resource Center and laminated them so they would be extra durable. I love that they come in a large poster size that I keep on my easel for shared reading (see above photo) and then also the small individual size so I can give each student their own copy of the alphabet chart to work with. My students frequently use the mini-charts for writing workshop, reading groups, and even several of our literacy stations. I think that consistency is important when students are first learning the alphabet, so I like that they use the same alphabet chart with the same picture icons for everything.

I'd love to hear how your reading groups are going-especially any tips you might have for working with those kiddos that are still struggling to learn the alphabet.

Play-doh!

Anyone else going through tons of play-doh? It has to be the best invention to keep 5 year olds occupied! My students loved it when I made them magic play-doh at the beginning of the year- it's just homemade play-doh with a dot of food coloring hidden in the middle so that when they start rolling it around in their hands it "magically" changes colors. I haven't cooked up any homemade play-doh since the first week of school, but I did just see a recipe for pumpkin pie play-doh on Pinterest last night. I bet it smells delicious-I only hesitate to make it because with the class I have this year-surely some of them would try to eat it!

My students love our play-doh literacy station. At the beginning of the year they rolled out long skinny "play-doh snakes" and shaped them into alphabet letters. Now that we are further along in the school year, it is all about play-doh stamping. I wrote a grant for Lakeshore's wonderful play-doh letter stampers a few years ago, and they have been wonderful! My students love stamping our sight words. Lately they have been using the play-doh word work pack from Leslie at Kindergarten Works. They are practicing stamping the missing letter and also stamping sight words (there are also CVC picture cards and word family stamping mats too that I'll let them use later in the year).

Luckily I had a parent generously donate many cans of play-doh last year, so we haven't run out yet. However, I just found a great use for our empty play-doh cans. Play-doh cans make a great storage container for small game pieces. For example, in my alphabet station this week students are playing Mrs. Wills' Fall ABC Matching Game and all the little game cards fit perfectly into the play-doh can!

Now bigger game cards definitely won't fit, but anything small-like small math manipulatives or letter tiles fit easily. Mrs. Wills recommends using a frosting jar for many of her math station game cards-so that would be a good option if you need storage for bigger cards or game pieces (but I am trying to stay away from the frosting-so I don't have any of those jars to recycle!!). You could even make cute little labels to stick on your play-doh cans to match the materials you are storing inside of them-no time for that this week though as I must finish my report cards!

Parent Teacher Conferences

Our parent teacher conferences are coming up in a week and so I am starting to get prepared now. Even though this will be my 7th year teaching, I still get stressed out over conferences. It's so challenging to communicate to parents about how their kindergartener is doing in school in just 15 short minutes! Kindergarten parents also have tons of questions-especially if this is their first child in school, and I like to be able to address all of their questions and concerns. Of course we also have to go through the first quarter report card and I like to show lots of work samples, examples of assessments, and any little anecdotes I might have about the child.

Over the years I have had parents ask me how they can help their child at home, and I've often just given a quick tip or two-usually encouraging them to read lots of books at home! I also always have a few students that are still struggling with basic concepts like name writing and letter recognition at this point in the year and really like to encourage the parents of these students to work with me to support these skills at home.

Last year I finally got my act together and made a list of math tips and a list of literacy tips for parents. They are just quick one-page lists of ideas parents can try at home with their kindergartener. I tried my best to make many of the ideas fun. I handed these tip sheets to parents at the end of our conference and many really liked them.







Feel free to download these if you think your students' parents would find them useful. If you have any tips for successful parent-teacher conferences, I'd love to hear them!