the apple orchard

On Friday we visited Chapin's Apple Orchard. It was an exciting morning full of rich information and juicy apples. We had a tour of the working orchard and learned about how apples grow, the age of the apples we ate, and observed trees at different stages. We also learned how to read an apple's story by noticing what part of the apple was facing the sun and what part of the apple was in the shade.

We walked on the paths with our wagon of apples, helped to make cider in an apple press, and learned the parts of a bee's body through an interactive song.

Thank you to our many chaperones for joining us for this learning experience!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 


Before we went. . .

We started a class teaching book about an apple orchard. Many of the children have visited Chapin's before with their families and had a lot of information to share. Our collaborative work connected to the teaching points in our writing workshop; writers picture a topic in their mind and use pictures and words to teach about that one topic. 

We pictured apple orchards in our minds and shared around the oval. We used our reflections to develop our book. We will finish our class teaching book of the orchard on Monday, now using what we gathered from our field trip to write our last two pages and add more detail.

The first page has pictures of the big, red barn at Chapin Orchard and pictures of apples and apple trees. It's important to look for the sign; apples this way!

On the second page we have pictures of a tractor with a wagon of apples in the back.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 




A is for apple. . .

I introduced a short apple poem full of words the children can read. It provided a beginning letter/sound, rhyming words, and an invitation to draw a round and sweet apple. During morning meeting the children read the poem together and some bravely read it on their own in front of their peer audience. Each child used a sticky note to write their name and draw an apple to go with our poem. They used the words from the poem to illustrate a round red or green apple.

 

 

After we went. . .

Going to the orchard provides an authentic and meaningful COUNTING, COMPARING, and GRAPHING opportunity!

When we returned from the orchard we fueled up with apple cider donuts and closely examined our picked apples. I asked children to notice what the apples looked like, the visible attributes.

What is the same or different about our apples? 
How could we sort our apples?

Their (brilliant!) noticings and ideas for sorting;

Some of the apples are slanted on top and some aren't.

I notice that some of the apples have long stems and some have short stems. 

Some apples don't have any stems and some do.

Some have been facing the sun more. Their skin is red or sunburnt like we learned!

All of the apples have red and green spots.

They are different sizes, some apples are really big and some are small and some are medium.

I listed their noticings and we voted on one way to sort our apples. The children voted to go with Sebby's idea; sorting our apples by size. We didn't use measuring tools to determine big, medium, or small. We used a visual, finding one apple that looked small and one that looked big and using those as our comparisons for sorting. Later in the year we will introduce measuring tools.

Once the children worked together to sort our apples we counted how many in each group. We talked about showing this information with numbers or with a graph. A graph is a visual way to show how many and to compare how many.

This was our first time thinking about graphs. We used a bar graph to show how many apples in each group and talked why it is called a bar graph. This is one way to show and compare. We talked about how to read our graph; What information is this graph giving you? What do you notice about this graph? 

 

literacy (continued)

This week the Kindergarten readers and writers used their developing skills to point to and read pictures and words. At this time in the year we are setting the foundation for the development of essential reading and writing skills.

The children are listening for the sounds in words, they are using pictures to help read words during reading workshop, they are finding words in our classroom during writing workshop, they are learning sight words, and they are pointing to and reading collections of words.

All of our reading, writing, and phonics work has connected to the concept that readers read pictures and words. This is something the children have continued to do in our classroom by reading labels, signs, and their names!

Here is a selection of photographs of children demonstrating their developing skills for reading, writing, and exploring words;

SOUNDS

Part of our work reading words is identifying sounds in words. We listen for the sounds we hear at the beginning of words. We stretch words, saying words slowly and listening for all of the sounds we hear. At this time in the year we spend a lot of time identifying the beginning sounds in words.

In this image from earlier in the year, students organized their names by beginning letter. I used their names and this moment to initiate our conversations and learning about beginning sounds as well as the concept of a word library. We will be learning and collecting many words this year and will add the words we know by sight to our word library, a place to organize our important words and a tool to use during our workshops.

We also explore words in more playful ways. Two of our greetings during morning meeting this week provided additional opportunities to engage with words. We explored the sounds at the end of words- two words that end the same are rhyming words. I introduced a "find your match" greeting.

The Kindergarten readers found their rhyming match, using their knowledge of the word guided by the picture (readers read pictures and words!) and their understanding of rhyme.

These greetings encourage students to transfer their developing literacy skills and connect with their peers. These greetings are also an opportunity for children to support their peers and to solve problems.

When Ivy walked around the rug without reading her puzzle piece first, she was unsure of the match she needed to find. Colbie approached her and offered to read their puzzle pieces together. This was a moment to learn from; the first direction in a "find your match" greeting is to read your word. It's important to follow directions. This moment also taught us how to support a peer during a "find your match" greeting; use kind words to offer to read your pieces together.

Once you find your match, you sit elbow-to-elbow and get ready to point and read your match from left to right. Our rhyming puzzle is now a choice during academic choice.

 

WRITING WORKSHOP

This is our second week in our writing workshop. The children have been writing teaching books, adding detail to their pictures and words. We have had many shares of children being problem solvers and how they added labels to their pictures by writing beginning sounds or how they have found words in our classroom!

In the pictures Brennan is writing a teaching book about the zones of regulation and used our visuals to add labels to his drawings. Ira is writing a teaching book about the Northern Lights. With some coaching he was able to pull out information to write on each page. I asked, what do the northern lights look like? Green. I wonder how you could show that information in your book? He quickly rushed to the visuals of our zones and found one word; green.

Nora is using a nonfiction book about animals in a tree to draw the details in her squirrel. We found the word squirrel and listened to the beginning sound. With support, she added an s to her illustration.

 

 

 

READING WORKSHOP

During reading workshop this week we further supported the children's growth reading pictures and words by going on a word hunt! The children used one sticky note to record a word they found in their nonfiction books. It had to be a word they could read using their sight word knowledge or using the picture from their nonfiction book.

This was an important job during their private read. After they found one word they added their sticky note to our chart paper and went back to private reading. Our share was reading all of the words we found. This work supported the children in recognizing that they can read more and more words in all of our books- they felt empowered and engaged!