our big words

This week the children have continued to develop their language and speaking and listening skills through reflection and representation. Much of our learning and work together connects to our growing understanding of community. We have explored the words community, love, kindness, peace, and togetherness. Our conversations and reflections connect to our school's philosophy around inclusion and equality. We will continue to empower and strengthen our community through rich read alouds and active engagement.

On Monday we read the narrative Martin's Big Words. The children were captivated by the story of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. In this narrative we learn how Martin Luther King used powerful words to advocate and create change. I invited the children to think of their own big words. Many of the Kindergarteners shared words we have explored throughout the year. Other children said new words.

 

 




Throughout the week we pulled from their big and powerful words. During morning meeting I reread their words and one child chose the word we would work with. I introduced the word cultivate and the children responded to the question, How can we cultivate _________ ?

Our ideas continued to connect back to Martin's Big Words. We can cultivate love by listening to one another, helping when someone needs a hand, welcoming everyone in, using kind words, and sharing feelings of love. The children used pictures, labels, speech bubbles, and symbols to show ways we can cultivate our big word. On Tuesday, we noticed moments when we cultivated love in our classroom. We celebrated the little and powerful choices we made.

How can you cultivate love? 
What will happen if we all try to cultivate love? 
How does this connect to Martin Luther King's story?

 

On Wednesday one community member chose the word sharing. This was a little more challenging to represent, because for some children the word went beyond sharing materials.

 

 

On Thursday our chosen word was really a short sentence a child had written on Monday. Their sticky note had three words; You and Me.

How can we cultivate feelings of you and me? 
What does that look like in our classroom? In our school? 
These words connect back to our exploration of togetherness, community, and inclusion.
All are welcome here, you and me.

We can cultivate these big words and feelings everyday. Here is a small collection of photographs showing how we cultivated you and me this week.

We can cultivate you and me by reading together and listening when it is our partner's turn to read. We cultivate you and me by sharing our work and being open to feedback from peers.

 

 

We cultivate you and me by building together.

We cultivate you and me by welcoming Megan into our classroom and being ready for her to teach, learn, and work with us.

 


We cultivate you and me by recognizing all of the hard work we do as a community and celebrating our social and emotional accomplishments in many different ways.

This week we celebrated making kind choices over an afternoon snack of pancakes and syrup. It was a joyful and delicious end to a week full of powerful reflection. May we all learn from the children and cultivate big feelings and words everyday in simple and beautiful ways; saying good morning, welcoming someone to work with you, or sharing a smile and a meal with friends.

 

 

 

book talk power

We have been studying the patterns in books to help make our reading stronger. Readers understand the books they are reading. One way to build understanding is to study the pictures and words, notice the repeating parts, and think about how the book ends. We can use patterns to help us read unknown words, retell important parts, and introduce books!

This week we strengthened our pattern power and book talk power. The children practiced introducing their books to their peers, reading the title, stating the pattern, and sharing a part of the ending. We then practiced with a partner and used the patterns to play a game, Guess What's Next!

Our reading workshop has been rich with opportunities to explore the structure of books and to develop our comprehension skills within the text.

Practicing introducing a favorite book to the community

The title of this book is ____________
On every page ___________
There's a surprise in this book at the ___________

 

Using the pattern to play Guess What's Next with a reading partner!

 

 

sound power

We practice our sound power daily in reading and writing workshop. In reading we notice the letters in words and use what we know about sounds to read words. In writing we say the sounds we hear slowly, stretching words and writing what we hear. We celebrate sound power through alphabet books and getting our mouths ready for the first sound. Our work is an exploration of sounds, letters, and language.

One way we can make our sound power stronger is to engage with words in many different ways. This week we used picture power and sound power to build words, solve for missing vowels, write beginning sounds, tap, blend, and match. The children engaged with this work during morning greetings, through the morning message, during Fundations, and during our beloved academic choice.

Find Your CVC Word Match Greeting

One greeting we did this week provided another way to work with words having a consonant-short vowel-consonant. Some children had the picture matching a word with 3 sounds while their peers had the matching word. In this greeting the Kindergarteners had to use their picture and sound power to decode the word and find their match!

 

Morning Message Work

Through this work the children noticed what was the same/different, produced rhyming words, counted how many sounds v. how many parts in the words, used sound power to listen for all of the sounds, reinforced their knowledge of consonant v. vowel, and determined what kind of vowel- did it sound like it's name or did we stretch it?

Building Words

Build the word mat. Now change one letter to turn mat into pat.
Build the word pen. What's the vowel (the middle sound) in pen? Turn pen into den. 

 

Academic Choice

Connecting our choices to our work during Fundations, we introduced a new word puzzle for children to build. This quickly became a favorite choice, especially when offered a clipboard and piece of paper to record! On Thursday we further extended learning by providing small books; 
My Book of CVC Words  By -                     

While our academic choice experience connected to our phonics and word study work, it also provided an empowering opportunity for our growing readers, writers, and word scientists to share their work with their peers. We can be authors of many different kinds of books, like little CVC word books!

 

 

 

what does peace feel like?

Our time returning to school following a long break is an opportunity to reflect on our community work and make connections as we move forward. This is a time to think about other ways we can take care of ourselves and support our peers. One way is to cultivate feelings of peace.

We do this by first exploring the word peace. We read a variety of literature- children's words from around the world, stories, how-to books, and informational books- about peace. We think deeply about what peace means and how it feels. Children use developing speaking and listening skills to reflect with turn and talk partners. Our conversations connect to essential social and emotional learning as well as literacy; speaking and listening, language acquisition, writing and representation.

On Thursday we shared some of our initial thoughts about the word peace. Then we read the book What does PEACE feel like? In this book children from around the world share their thoughts about peace; what it looks, sounds, smells, and tastes like. These children encourage us to search within and use rich and specific language in our reflections.

On Friday the children represented what peace looks like on a sticky note, using the prompt from our book. We will continue to interact with our morning message during the next few days, inviting children to transfer their writing skills into their representations of peace.


PEACE 1-2-20

SW- Peace is kindness and cozy fires with hot chocolate.
SP- Peace is love and bringing love to our community.
NF- Peace is love.
RD- Peace is loving your mom and dad.
CS- Peace is snowy trees.
CM- Peace is spending time with your sister or brother.
BP- Peace is happiness.
IBW- Peace is loving my dad.
MW- Peace is love.
AW- Peace is all of us in the green zone, sitting in a circle.
CB- Peace is quiet and calm.
ZM- Peace is being nice to your community.
IA- Peace is loving everyone you know.
OH- Peace is friends and family and time together.
LJ- Peace is the way my heart feels in a room of children listening to a story.
BC- Peace is quiet.
MR- Peace is welcoming everyone.

What does PEACE look like? 

 

 

 

Peace looks like...

a flower, my baby brother Rhett, hearts, us in the green zone in a circle, trees and people and animals sharing love. 

What does PEACE sound like? 

 

 

1-7-20

After reading A little PEACE, how can you spread peace in our community?

I can spread peace by . . .

Making green zone choices
Helping friends
Saying Good Morning!
Using kind words
Listening
Giving a hug if someone needs one
Being kind, I just want the whole world to be happy
Writing kind notes
Working together
Using a kind voice
Respecting all living things, even the animals in the woods and their homes
Being in the green zone
Helping people up when they fall down
Being in the green zone
Helping everyone, always

What does PEACE smell like?

 

Making connections

Our conversations, reflections, and representations of PEACE have connected to all of our community work. Many of the children feel peace is being kind, welcoming people in, and taking care of one another. We have talked about the power in sharing feelings of peace within our classroom and how those feelings and actions will grow. 

On Friday we welcomed Sam Drazin into our school. Sam shared his story and through his story we can build our awareness of differences- visible and not visible. We can learn about ourselves and how we can be more inclusive through learning about Sam and his experiences, differences, tools, and many strengths.

After hearing Sam's story we had a community reflection and I invited the children to represent their feelings, making connections to our work around cultivating peace in our community. Those representations developed into notes for Sam. 

Later in the day Sam visited our classroom and we shared our feelings, notes for him, and had the opportunity to explore the tools he uses to help him hear. It was a powerful day full of rich and important connections. 

Sam, thank you for helping us to better understand how we can spread feelings of PEACE through an inclusive community. 

After hearing Sam's story, how are you feeling? 

I'm feeling...

love- lots of feelings of love
thankful, thankful for being able to hear Sam's story
a little sad, because of the surgeries Sam had, but also happy- I'm happy
surprised
glad that Sam shared about everyday kindness, like sitting next to someone at lunch
proud
scared, at first, but now I feel happy
happy, I wasn't sure at the beginning, but Sam was brave
impressed, Sam was so brave
funny and sad, because some of his stories were sad, but then he had funny stories, too!
happy
empowered by Sam's story
happy, because I really liked his story
impressed
loved, I'm feeling really loved here and for Sam!