There is much to capture during a week of kindergarten and some of it is best accomplished with photos rather than narrative or video. Read each caption to learn more about the photo and the point of me sharing it. As always, AMA (ask me anything)!
The week before Spring Break, we did something like this together whole group. This week, the students cut the puzzle pieces apart and glued them to the paper on their own at the independent center. Later in the day, we wrote the story together. I just want to make clear that having students copy you is NOT the way to teach writing. But I do recommend it about once every week or every other week. It is crucial that students take risks and write on their own most days, but it is also good for them to see you model writing and to learn how to copy before going into first grade.
I made these last spring when I first learned about heart words. I know so much more now, but these are mostly accurate and I’ve introduced and/or talked about many of these words so it was time to hang them up. I explain to the students that, during writing time when they’re trying to find a word, I might tell them to look at the heart words with the yellow clips, the blue clips, etc. Many students will pay no attention to these whatsoever, but several will look at these during transitions and learn a bunch of them incidentally. I sincerely hope that you have more display space in your classroom than I do.
Our theme this week was zoo/wild animals and one of our read alouds was Who’s Tall? Who’s Small? So we learned the word all . One day at Miss Lori’s center the students did this activity. When I walked by and said, “What are you working on?” one student replied with,”We’re finding the real words.”
About once a week, students write the words from their current word list at the independent center.
The phonics lesson this day was reviewing “drop the e and add ing .” How many students does this pertain to? Just a few. But all the others get a good review on just the -ing , which I do expect them to recognize and read and use in their writing.
We read some nonfiction during zoo/wild animals week (to learn about animals), but I also throw in some quality fiction. This is a super fun book, in case you don’t know about it. It is filled with onomatopoeia.
My teammate and I designed this activity/assessment because our staff unpacked one of the ELA standards K-5 and decided to focus on it. Each grade level had to come up with an assessment for this standard. We will spend several weeks teaching/practicing it and then have a couple weeks where they try it on their own. I like that our assessment is also a teaching tool. If you want a copy, email me.
This phonics lesson was about learning to recognize CVC words. I figure it is the first step to understanding what a closed syllable is. I also think it will serve to remind students to use a short vowel when reading CVC words. I wrote the words, we read them, and then I had students tell me whether each letter was a consonant or a vowel. After three of them, they started to see the pattern. I then taught them how to mark a short vowel and we decided we would do some research and determine if every CVC word has a short vowel. A conversation with one of my subscribers inspired this lesson. One of our read alouds talked about fingerprints so you can see that I was teaching them about fingerprints.
Later the same day, students got out their reading folders and had to find any three-letter word. We wrote them on the board and tried to figure out if they were CVC words. We will continue with this about once a week until the end of the year. I think it’s a good goal—to recognize a word as a CVC word and know it will probably have a short vowel.
What better time to do fingerprint art than right after talking about fingerprints. I found these online.
Doing fingerprint art at Miss Lori’s center.
At the independent center one day, students had to find opposites and then write them on their paper. Such an easy and productive center that everyone can do at their own level.
Students did this at Miss Lori’s center. Another easy center idea that every student can do at their own pace. And just looking at this, I see teaching points for this student.
That’s it for this week! Hope you had a good one!
Randee
To your comment about not having students copy you exclusively to teach writing - I agree. I've noticed they become overly dependent on this, and seem almost paralyzed when expected to write independently. Today I was thrilled to see everyone write their own idea of what they think the tooth fairy does with all of the teeth. My strong writers were amazing, but even my strugglers had an idea, and with help and a deadline (when you have your idea written down, and you can read it to me, you can go to lunch!) everyone had something. A small victory for a crazy Friday.