Tuesday, October 20

Curious George Kindergartners were very hard workers and good listeners today. For our first activity, we finished our leaf art activity from Monday. Monday, traced and cut out large leaf patterns. Then we painted the leaves with primary colors yellow and red. The yellow and red paint made the secondary color orange. Today, we used crayon to add more color to our leaves. We are experimenting with the color and textures we see in nature. We did lots of literacy work. We had Book Clubs with Mrs. Karg. Our books focused on repetitive text - sentences that followed a pattern - and the star words (sight words) "an" and "the". Some students were sounding out words from the /an/ family in their books as well. We read two wonderful stories - When Autumn Comes and Curious George Goes to the Fire Station. We did some shared reading about the sequences in stories. We used sets of three pictures to tell stories with a beginning, middle, and end. Students used this technique in their writing workshop. They used papers with a row of three squares to draw pictures, telling a story from beginning to end. One story written was about getting a new cup (first) that dropped (middle) and broke (end.) There were some stories about shopping for Halloween costumes, and seeing some scary masks and decorations. We discussed how writing about things that scare us can make us feel better. One student wrote about someone in their family who got sick and then died. Students' writing can help them express their feeling. Writing can give children a way to talk about things that are personal or important to them. It's amazing thing to be in our room when all the students are so actively engaged in what they are writing. There is student sharing time at the end of workshop each day; students are so eager to explain their work to the class. Right now, we are using writing workshop to learn story structure, use creativity, and generate ideas for writing. Soon, very soon, we'll start incorporating more of our letter and sound knowledge into our writing. (It's mostly pictures now.) We also had library with Mrs. George. Students brought home a printing paper today on which they wrote the words "an" and "Nan." You'll notice the stress on lower case letters. Students' letters are not usually placed correctly on the handwriting lines at this time, but that skill is being encouraged and praised. You'll see those letters fit inside those lines more accurately as the year goes on.