academic choice

Through academic choice children are engaging with the curriculum in authentic and creative ways. Within the framework of our essential standards we can observe, conference, and support students in mastering specific goals and standards as we work together to monitor progress. Our teaching must begin with seeing the student; reading their writing, listening to them read a favorite book and observing the strategies they use, or noting the language they are using when explaining their work. This knowledge and understanding of our students shapes our teaching during all of our workshops, including academic choice.

We use a workshop model for our academic choice. I often use a read aloud or an example of student work to introduce a new choice or encourage conversation around how we can extend a choice.

For example;

What tools could we use as readers when working with kind notes?

Our name rocks to write a name.
Our alphabet chart.
Our sight words.

Our choices are ever evolving based on the interests and questions of the students as well as the learning occurring in our other workshops. It is important for children to transfer their developing literary skills across experiences, content areas, and into their exploration and play.

Examples from the Classroom

Kind Notes

LS is writing a kind note to her dog, Boo-Boo. She wants to write her dog's name. I ask her, what strategy can you use? We have written her dog's name before in her teaching book about Boo-Boo during writing workshop. I think she will suggest stretching out his name. Instead LS (the problem solver) rushes to our writing folders. She brings her folder to the table and finds her book about Boo-Boo, using her work from writing workshop to write her dog's name.

CB is writing a kind note to her mom. She starts by writing her name. We talk about the structure of a note; it has to be addressed to someone, like a letter. We can use sight words to write a kind note; to and love. RD and I check in about using the word to in his note to dad. I will be looking to see if both students use these sight words in their kind notes independently when they go back to finish their kind notes. 

 

Cutting and Gluing

SW is working on adding labels to a collage she has developed using a picture of one of our favorite Jon Klassen characters; triangle. She is using our art scissors and shape punches to add detail to her work. How do you write triangle? She quickly uses one of our favorite writing strategies; find the word in a book! Using the book Triangle she adds labels to her collage. 

 

Leaf Stamp

Our red leaf stamp is a new academic choice this week, following the work we did with the leaf stamp earlier this Fall. Using the stamp and the skill of outlining, students choosing Leaf Stamp are expected to write By- __________ at the top of their canvas. They are expected to take their time applying ink to the leaf stamp, push the stamp on to their canvas, and outline the leaf carefully. 

Then, using our little color book RED, students write the repeating sentence on their work; The leaf is red. This supports their one-to-one correspondence, development of early reading skills, recognition of sight words, and foundational writing skills; sentence structure, letter printing, and word writing. 

Small Building

SP uses sticky notes to add two labels to his small building design; bird and mountains. He represents a bird (owl) using gems, wooden leaves, and rocks. He uses gems to frame his work and triangle rocks to create the mountains. He uses his speaking and language skills to explain his work. I ask, What could you add to help tell your audience about your work? Labels!

The following choice I put up a picture of SP's work. What can we learn from SP? 

We can add labels.

We can use books and the classroom and stretch words- just like we do during writing workshop.

 


Alphabet Puzzles

Literacy puzzles continue to be a favorite choice. We use them to develop letter ID and sound knowledge and we also use them to extend our work. On Friday the children working with literacy puzzles put one of our alphabet puzzles in the same order as our alphabet chart- alphabetical order. I suggested adding alphabet labels. How many sticky notes would you need? 26! 

We gathered together and took turns pointing to and reading the alphabet. I offered a way to extend their exciting work- could we save the sticky notes and use them to create our own alphabet puzzle or book? BC and SP excitedly saved their sticky notes to use for the creation of an alphabet book the following choice. 

 

green zone partners

What does it mean to be a green zone partner?

A green zone partner is someone who helps you. 

In writing workshop the children read one of their teaching books to a partner. Their partner asked questions about their teaching book; What? Where?

These questions helped the writers to add more information or detail to their work.

As children answered the questions they quickly added more labels, arrows, and expression to their illustrations. They were expected to be able to read their own writing, answer questions about their writing, and use these questions to strengthen their work.

 

 

In reading workshop partners used a small copy of our partnership poster to guide their work together. If they sat side-by-side with one book in the middle they used a check to show that they did that step, if they shared a wow page in their favorite storybook or added a pinch of their own thinking they used a check. When our middle school reading buddies joined us they asked children to repeat what tool they were using; a checklist.

Partners help us to make our reading (and writing) stronger.
Checklists help us to organize what we need to do.
Being in the green zone helps all of us to be ready to learn!

 

 

poem work

On Monday we revisited our apple pie poem. Using teaching from both writing and reading workshop, the children engaged with our poem in different ways. We reread the poem together, we thought about what we could draw to show our poem, and we noticed repeating words in our poem.

Writers call to mind what they want to show or teach and use detail to put their ideas on paper.

The Kindergarteners came up with an individual plan and used a sticky note and black pen to draw their plan; a steaming pie with a heart cut into the top, a picture of two smiling people enjoying apples and love together, and apples hanging up so high. They used arrows, labels, and dashed lines- all skills and strategies we have developed during our writing workshop.

 

Readers notice repeating words and sight words in their reading. They find, point to, and read more and more words.

Later during our reading workshop share we used highlighters to highlight the repeating word apples in our poem. We noticed a new sight word that is also a repeating word in one of our favorite storybooks The Carrot Seed; up!

Our apple pie poem and previous apple poem are available for the children to reread during our reading workshop.

 

 

fall leaf sentences

As we begin to introduce new literacy concepts we must continue to support children in making connections across our learning. In reading workshop we are celebrating how readers read pictures and more words and in writing workshop we are celebrating our ability to use illustrations to teach our audience. We are learning our first sight words and how we can read repeating words in our morning message. All of this work and learning is connected and part of our growth as readers, writers, and literary artists. 

It is important to provide opportunities for students to point and read words and build with words, working with new words in many different ways. 

We have loved watching the changing leaves and talking about the colors we have noticed on our playground and on our Fall hikes. 

As part of this, I introduced the sentence;  I  see  a  red  leaf . 

We read the sentence on the morning message and discussed the children's noticings. We noticed the spaces between words and the dot (period) at the end. We counted how many words and how to use the picture to help read the words, red leaf. 

After reading the sentence together, every child read the sentence again on their own, pointing to and reading the words on a sentence strip. They then cut out the words and put the sentence back in order. They glued the words on their black canvas and used a leaf stamp to show the red leaf. I offered an idea from a student a few years ago; outlining the leaf with black pen. When you outline it helps to make your illustration really stand out and is helpful for our line and tracing practice!

Sentence building offers a hands on learning experience; children are developing their knowledge of sight words as well as their understanding of word order, spacing, and punctuation. Children are practicing their one-to-one correspondence and their cutting and gluing skills.

This was an engaging and joyful experience for a community of builders, leaf enthusiasts, and developing readers!

 

 

 

 

 


Building and representing leaf sentences is now a choice during academic choice. Children can work with the overhead projector in the loft to build our leaf sentence and draw one red leaf using wet erase markers. 

 

 

 

the apple orchard (continued)

This week we have continued to connect our experience at Chapin's apple orchard to our growth as writers, readers, and community members.

We started a class teaching book using what we already know about apple orchards before we went on our field trip. Using skills we're developing in our independent work as writers- picturing a topic in our mind and using pictures and words to give information about that one topic- the children drew pictures and added labels for the final two pages of our class teaching book.

Picture our time at Chapin's;

What did we see? 
What did we experience? 
What else can we teach about the apple orchard?

Colbie shared that honey bees are important workers on the orchard. We saw honey bees and we learned about honey bees. What should we draw or write in our teaching books? Honey bees and apple blossoms!

 

 

 

 

 

We have shared information about apples and workers. But, what happens after you pick the apples? What else did we see at the orchard? What other information is important to put in our teaching book? We did a lot of work with the cider press and discussed how we use apples to make different things to drink and eat.

In their writing children used arrows to show how to twist an apple to pick it off a branch- something we learned at the orchard. They used dashed lines to show apples going into the cider press and drew a picture of someone pushing down on the press- making apple cider!

 

 

 

On Tuesday we voted for what we wanted to make with our apples, using the morning message to organize our hopes for apple bread, apple pie, or apple butter. Reading the pictures and the words the children engaged with the morning message by putting their name (written on a sticky note) under their choice. We counted and compared. Apple pie had the most votes, apple butter had the least.

What do you think we need to make apple pie? We shared what we thought we needed to make apple pie. On Wednesday I invited the children to use pictures and beginning sounds to show an ingredient on a sticky note.

The following day (Thursday) we used some of their sticky notes to represent our list of ingredients. We used our list to guide our measuring, mixing, and making of apple pie.

 

 

Making our apple pies!

We checked our list, making sure we had all of the ingredients we needed. We measured and counted. At the end of our process, when asked what symbol we should cut into the top crust, the children excitedly said a heart!

The academics of making apple pie;

reading the morning message (our three choices)
making a choice and taking initiative- engaging with the morning message
writing your name on a sticky note and rereading your choice (vote)
counting and comparing how many
using pictures and words to answer the question, "What do we need (ingredients) to make apple pie?"
using numbers, words, and pictures to check our list of ingredients
using math words; measurement, top (crust that is over the apples) and bottom (crust that is under the apples)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

On Friday I introduced a new poem with a repeating word (apple) and sight words. We noticed the rhyming words in our poem. We found and circled the repeating word, apple. We read the poem together and brave readers took turns reading the poem to the community; pointing to and reading the words using what they knew about the poem, the pictures, and beginning sounds to guide their reading.