Writing Journals

Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday of this week I’ve been working one on one with students during Daily 5; rather than observing at the Guided Reading table. I float around the room and meet with students who are writing in their journals, reading to themselves, or doing word work activities. 

So far, my favorite part of this opportunity is all of the “mini teaching” moments I get to have with students. I sit down next to a student who is writing in their journal and ask them what they are working on or if they would like to share a sentence they have written with me. We read through the sentence together and find one or two ways to beef up the sentence. For example, focusing on having all lowercase letters in the sentence (versus random words that are capitalized but are not suppose to be). The best part, is when the student catches their mistake(s) while reading the sentence without me even having to say a word! Some of the things we focus on are starting every sentence with a capital letter, ending with punctuation, using finger spaces, and writing in lower case letters through out the sentence (unless words are suppose to be capitalized).  

The feeling you get from seeing a student gleam from ear to ear as they show you a page in their journal that they could not be more proud just can’t be explained. The picture below is of one students journal page. He was able to share this page with his classmates. Talk about a proud moment! I loved seeing how much thought went into this sentence. He used describing words, punctuation, and several star words! 

(He starts the sentence below the picture then moves to continue his writing on the top of the page)

Friday is the 100th day of school! The students are just a little bit excited :)

Physical Education & Music

As a student teaching requirement, I am to observe my students in their Physical Education and Music classes. Today was the day I finally got this task complete! I had been planning to go on Wednesday for the last two weeks but each time we had a snow day! 

But, back to the point of this post, PE and Music observations! There were 32 kindergarteners in the music room. Each student is assigned a spot on the floor that they are responsible for “sticking” to for the duration of class. For the most part, the students handled this well! There were only a few wigglers and movers.

Music class started with three warm up songs (played from an iPod) that the students sang along with as they danced and moved their bodies. Between the three songs, the students were clapping, moving, and dancing from head to toe (perfect for kindergartners)! 

I love that the activities students do in music incorporates the star words each kindergarten room is working on for the week! One of the words is over so the students learned the words and movements to “Going Over the Sea.” 

PE class also surprised me by exposing students to and incorporating star words into different games that are played! (I did not see the words in use today but they are posted on the walls. Students also told me they play games with their words.) The Health curriculum is taught to students during gym class; today happened to be a Health day. I was disappointed I didn’t get to see how different the students are in a PE class with freedom to run and get their energy out but it was still interesting to observe a Health lesson.     

Safety was the topic for Health today. The lesson focused on making safe choices and how to be safe. How to cross the street safely, crosswalks, sidewalks, and not going for walks outside alone were some of the key concepts. Students had to sit on the gym floor as they listened to and participated in the lesson. This was difficult for most of the students as they were in a gym so all they wanted to do was run, jump, skip, or move!   

I would like to observe this class again on a day when the students are doing PE instead of Health to compare the students in these two difference types of classes!

A Very Snowy Week! 1~24~14

Let me begin by briefly sharing what a crazy second week it was: Staff development day on Monday, students were released early (10:30!) on Wednesday (because of snow), then a late start on thursday (because of snow). So, when Friday rolled around, and was actually a full day, I was quite excited!      

On Friday, we had Brain Wave and Word a Day right away in the morning. Students will be decorating their Valentine’s Day boxes soon so, today for art, the class learned how to cut hearts out of construction paper. This was much more of a challenge than you might think! We’re talking about the kind of hearts you create by folding a piece of paper in half and then cutting “half of a heart” shape out of it. 

Some of the students understood the concept right away and needed minimal assistance cutting out hearts. However, the majority of the class, had to hear step by step directions several times before they could catch on. I loved seeing the students at all of these different levels! I was able to work one on one with the students to help them. 

By the end of the lesson I think the students were a little tired of hearing me say the word fold! These are the basic, step by step directions we gave the students in hopes of making their “heart cutting out” as easy as possible: 

Hold the fold

Start with your pencil on the fold

Draw the number two by going UP and around your thumb

Hold the fold and cut following your line 

The end goal for art today was a heart collage that would brighten up the classroom. I love how different they turned out!

Fridays are also Mystery Reader days. Rather than only having a mystery readers come in during I Love to Read month, my mentor teacher tries to schedule one every Friday. The idea is for students to understand that reading is important all year long, not just during the month of February.

I volunteered to be today’s Mystery Reader! I was able to read two books with the students, “Snowmen at Night” by Caralyn Buehner and “The Smiley Snowman” by M. Christina Butler. I thought these books were very fitting given the snowy week we had been through! 

Pass the Shape {1~23~14}

My favorite lesson/activity from Thursday was math. Students have been learning about 2D shapes but today 3D shapes were introduced. The focus was on really getting the class familiar with the name of each shape. 

To do this, the class played “Pass the Shape”. Everyone sits on the floor in a circle. The teacher begins with the first shape, she shows students the shape and states the name of it. Then it is passed to the student sitting closest to her. This student passes the shape to the person sitting next to them and so on. However, before each student can pass the shape, they have say the name of it. At first, the next shape isn’t introduced until the previous shape has finished going all the way around. The fun starts after all of the shapes have been introduced! More than one shape is passed at a time so the students have to be paying attention and know the name of each shape before they can pass it on. We only had a few shape pile ups but overall the activity was fun and successful! Pass the Shape requires each student to say the name of each shape so they are more likely to learn and remember it. Students are also able to touch, hold, and feel each shape. 

Penguins were the topic for reading. Students completed an activity page that required them to read, trace, cut out, glue, and draw. Students first read the sentence then traced over each letter to write the sentence. Each word from the sentence was originally at the bottom of the page, so students needed to cut them apart, unscramble the sentence, and glue the words in order (without forgetting the period at the end!). After that, they could draw and color a picture to match the sentence. Before handing in their activity page, each student had to read their sentence to a teacher.

A Few Words From Ginger

Hello! My name is Ginger. I am the class pet in Ms. U’s kindergarten classroom. Ms. U thought the readers on this blog she has started might enjoy learning about me and hearing a little bit about the adventures I have been on with these kindergarteners of hers.

Every other night I go home with a different student (I get to sleepover at their house for two nights!). I bring this cute little journal with me so my student friend and I can write all about our time spent together and the adventures we go on. Oh, and we usually take pictures of what we do together to put in the journal too!

These pages are in the front my journal, they are for moms and dads to read so they know how to care for me and stuff like that.   

  

I have gone lots of fun and interesting places with these kindergartners! We’ve been sledding, out to eat, shopping, and so much more. These are some of the journal entries my friends and I have written.  

Well, I’m off to spend the weekend with another friend! Can’t wait to tell Ms. U all about it on Monday :)

Guided Reading & Screen Chomp

I dedicated my morning to Guided Reading. I have learned about, read about, heard about, and wrote about Guided Reading in various college courses. However, I had never actually been part of a Guided Reading teaching lesson between a teacher and students. So today was my chance! 

During Daily 5, I stayed at the Guided Reading table and listened/observed/participated in each reading group. Each student has a book bag that they bring back and forth between home and school. All of the books the students have been reading during Guided Reading stay in their book bag so the students have many opportunities to read them and become “masters” of the skills they learned during the lesson on each book. 

Students are divided into Guided Reading groups based on their abilities and what they need to work on most when it comes to reading skills. Some students are working with wordless books simply to practice the act of having a conversation with others. The highest group, is working on creating/spelling words based on a given word ending or blend. 

One group in particular stuck out for me today. The lesson and activity these students worked on I found to be quite fun, beneficial, and fitting for the skills these students needed to work on.  

The lesson focused on the word “are.” Students learned a song to help them remember how to spell the word: 

“The seal at the zoo says are are. 

First an A then an R then an E.  Are! Are!” 

Mix and Fix is a fun, interactive, mini activity students can do with any word they might be learning. Each student is given a magnet dish and and letters that make up the word they will be working with.     

The letters in the word are all mixed up 

So students have to rearrange (or fix) the letters to spell the word correctly. 

Today for math, the class learned about and used an app called Screen Chomp.

Students record their voice giving directions while they sketch out their ideas on the screen (which looks like a whiteboard).

A web link is then created from the “talk” that can be saved and shared with anyone. For the math lesson today, the class focused their Math Chomp on how to sort shapes. 

I will be going with my class to music and gym tomorrow, should be fun to observe the students in a different setting!  

Teddy Bear Letters and Snowmen (January 17th)

Since thursday was a snow day, the teddy bears got to sleep over at school two nights! As soon as the students arrived today, they raced around the classroom as they tried to find their stuffed animal friend. The class was in disbelief that their stuffed friends had MOVED and were not in the same place each child had left them. After all of the animals had been found, we read the student’s letters to them. They enjoyed hearing all the silly mischief their animals got into during their sleep over. 

Friday was an art day! The class created an open ended snowman project.

Each student decorated their snowman’s legs using any color pattern they wanted. Some of the students used just two colors while others chose up to four colors. The body, hat, boots, and mittens were pre-traced and ready to be cut out. However, students were encouraged to decorate their snowman any way they wanted. This includes adding a face, buttons, and decorating the snowman’s mittens and hat. I love how different each snowman turned out.

 A few of the students even added clothes to their snowman!

I was able to observe another first today, Brain Waves. Brain Waves is a brain-based, guided movement workout set to music. Multiple kindergarten classes gathered in the cafeteria where students got to participate in the fitness activities. Brain Waves music is played which instructs the students to move and do a variety of large motor movements. The goal is for students to feel alert, refreshed, and ready to learn after completing three of the Brain Waves songs. It was easy to see how much the kindergarteners enjoyed this chance to dance, move, and wiggle!

Monday will be my first teacher inservice day and staff meeting, can’t wait to learn a lot and see what the day brings! 

Pajama & Teddy Bear Day

What a fun day!! The school day seems to fly by when you’re dressed in comfy pajamas with a cozy teddy bear in hand. 

Stuffed animal introductions started off the morning. Each student had the opportunity to introduce to the class, the stuffed bear/dog/cat etc. that they brought today. The stuffed friend’s name was shared as well as any fun information the student wanted to share. Some students explained where or who the stuffed animal came from and why it is special to them. 

There are eight sections of kindergarten at the elementary school. Today, each classroom held a different station where students participated in or completed a fun teddy bear related activity. 

My students started in the gym where they got to play with a parachute. Each child LOVED playing with the parachute! From there, we went to relay races. Students tried to walk with their stuffed animal on their head, between their legs, and on their back. Sorting was the focus for another station to incorporate math into the stations time. Listening to a silly bear book that was read on TumbleBooks.com was the fourth station.  

A SMARTBoard activity and poem was the next station. A teddy bear was outlined on the SMARTBoard as well as all of the pieces needed to create the bear (arms, eyes, a nose, legs etc.). The teacher read a poem about bears to the class but left one word out of each line. It was up to the students to determine which teddy bear word rhymed and would come next in the poem. That piece was then placed onto the outline. 

One of the stations was a science experiment (mixing colors) in the form of a story. The teacher told a story about a polar bear who lived in the zoo but was tired of being the same color day after day. So, one day, he found some paint and used it to paint his fur. But, when children came to the zoo to see him they did not like how bright his coloring was. Polar bear tried painting himself several different colors but, in the end, he liked being white the best. He decided to take a shower with lots of soap in hopes of scrubbing off all of the paint. It worked! And, in the end, the polar bear was white again. 

This experiment used: 

~ Clean water (to represent the polar bear) in a see through container 

~ Food coloring (to represent the paint used by the polar bear) which was added to the water making it change colors 

~ A water and soap mixture as the polar bears “soap” (not positive what was all in this) to “clean” the polar bear and return the water to clear.    

The last station was quite fun for the kids (and teachers!) Students danced to the gummy bear song. A video demonstrating the actions that accompanied the song was played on the SMARTBoard for students to follow. A second interactive video for the song/story “We’re Going on a Bear Hunt,” was also part of this station.  

At the end of the day, each student’s stuffed animal friend got to stay at school for a sleep over. After all of the students left, my mentor teacher and I wrote a letter to each student from their stuffed friend’s perspective telling about the animal’s mischievous night.

(These are a few of the letters; a different letter was written for each student)

We then placed the stuffed animals, with their letter, around the classroom for each student to find in the morning. 

(This student's letter told of the stuffed animal's fun playing Checkers all night)

(The student of this bear LOVES the art center, we thought it only fitting for her bear to be found there.)

The janitor even decided to have one of the bears help him clean the classroom!

Building Connections (Day 2)

Today was filled with many new learning experiences! I’m going to highlight the most memorable ones for me. 

Math may not have gone exactly as planed (but does anything ever go exactly as we think it will?!) The new unit for math, that was introduced today, is sorting. Eventually the students will focus on sorting shapes but for today, the broad concept of what it means to sort items into groups was taught. The class discussion quickly became geared towards laundry. This helped the students understand the definition of sorting as well as ways in which things can be sorted. Students were able to personally connect to the concept of sorting. For example, laundry is sorted into piles such as pants or shirts, socks or towels. After MUCH discussion and many student examples, the class understood that there are three main ways to sort items (or shapes). We can sort by: Color, Size, and Kind. 

My favorite part of this discussion however, was when one of the students began explaining to the the class how to actually do laundry! It was unrelated to the math lesson but oh so cute. 

During snack today, two of the students put the biggest smile on my face. They asked me if they could eat snack in my “office” today! I do not have an office, my desk is a small section of counter (but it’s perfect for my needs). To the students, it was a pretty big deal to eat snack there and an honor for me!   

Handwriting was focused on the letter Zz. Students first worked on writing a capital and lowercase z. After their paper had been corrected, they use a Dot Dobber to stamp all of the z’s they could find on the letter mix-up sheet. 

A few more introductions took place today as I met the school counselor and principal.

Tomorrow is pajama and teddy bear day! Needless to say, the students are a bit excited (and so am I :) 

Officially a Student TEACHER - Day One!!

I could not have asked for a more perfect first day! I am going to LOVE my students and mentor teacher; I can already tell. This was sitting on my desk, welcoming me, as I walked in the door to my desk. Each student made me a welcome card (how cute!!) Incase that isn’t sweet enough, my mentor wrote me a kind message and gave me a pretty pink plant for my desk! 

Each of the kindergarten classes have recently started implementing Word of the Day as a part of their reading instruction. Every morning the students take one of these sheets and begin filling out the top two lines. A new, teacher chosen, word is introduced each day. On the first line, students write their first and last name. For “try” the students have to make their best attempt at writing the word prior to teacher assistance. The rest of the sheet is filled out as a class. 

The set up of the classroom is unlike any other classroom I have been in. Most of the whole class instruction and teaching takes place away from desks or tables. Students sit in the “carpet time” area which consists of a large rug, stools, a child sized couch, and a horse saddle. I am looking forward to seeing how this works with student learning.   

Parent teacher conferences started right after school today. My mentor teacher led the conferences as I observed. This was a wonderful opportunity for me to meet some of the parents and see where the students are coming from!   

While parents are waiting in this area for their conference to begin, they are encouraged to write a little note to their child. Students were given the note when they got to school the next day. I thought this was a sweet idea.  

I cannot wait to see what this semester has in store for me :) 

Student Teaching

Hello! My name is Kelsey (or Ms. U as my students say). I am a senior in college double majoring in Early Childhood Education and Elementary Education with Pre-Primary. For the next 16 weeks I will be entering the final chapter of my college education… I will be Student Teaching in kindergarten! How exciting!? I  hope to use this blog as a journal; to share my daily activities, lessons, "lightbulb moments", adventures, and discoveries in the world of education. I want to remember and record as much of this experience as possible. So, here is to the exciting adventure that lies ahead, as I take on teaching in kindergarten!