The Season for Giving

Ho-Ho-Ho!  It was a Santa's workshop in our room today!  Ms. Michelle's sixth grade crew came along side of us to be our school buddies in creating stuffy snowmen for our preschool buddies.  A number of wonderful parents and Grandma Chris joined us as Ms. Mary Beth's helpers. We couldn't have done it without you all...my deepest thanks!

The room was buzzing with creativity and joy. I wish you all could have seen the morning unfold.  So lovely to watch.  Adults serving big kids, big kids serving little kids. And next week my little kids will give their gift to the littlest kids over at the preschool.  A community of love. 

Service Learning: Preschool Buddies

Service Learning.  This is truly my favorite part of every year.

Teaching my children how to communicate, collaborate, create, critically think, and problem solve.  Not only with each other, but out in the world in different settings with different people.  Real world situations.  And the opportunity to be teachers themselves and for them to see themselves that way.  What joy!  

Here are my plans for the year on our service work.  I break it down into kid language and we will work on these plans each time we serve our preschoolers.  

Enduring Understandings:

• Parts impact the whole
• Interaction impacts community
• Roles impact order and responsibility

4C:  Communicating in Diverse Environments:  Understands that different learners can have different ideas

21st Century Skills: Civic Responsibility

• Demonstrates awareness of personal role in the school community by following rules and expectations

Learning Targets:

I can communicate and collaborate with a teammate.

I can understand what it means to serve

I can solve problems that arise by critically thinking

I can understand that I can make a difference my community/ world

Here is what we did on this first visit:

• Read the 5 Little Pumpkins Poem and worked on some simple math problems.
• We taught them one of our morning greetings: Hello Neighbor. We made eye contact and we were gentle in our first meeting.
• We read to our buddies. (this one always makes me tear up...to see them ALL feel so successful as readers!)
• Created: Each group was given a bag full of items that they then used to create something. This was so cool!

Click on this link to enjoy some precious photos.

https://goo.gl/photos/KMA6h3o67D89NiJL7

Making Connections: Text to World

I'm always looking for books that I think my students would enjoy.
Recently I found this non- fiction book depicting how a whale rescue is conducted.  

We loved the beautiful illustrations and we were amazed at the bravery of the rescue divers as they attempt to free the whale from a fisherman's net.

At the same time I heard about a whale rescue attempt off the coast of California.  I found a video clip of a news channel covering the event which I showed the crew.  
http://kfor.com/2015/09/05/by-air-and-sea-crews-search-for-blue-whale-trapped-in-net-off-california/

We experienced a text-world connection!  This led me to share one of my favorite books, BIG AL.

BIG AL was also caught in a fishing net but was rescued in a different way.  Now we made a text-text connection, comparing and contrasting the two books.

Good readers make connections when they read.
Connections can be:  
Text-text: connections between two books
Text-self: connections between something we've experienced and experiences in a book
Text-world:  connections between a book and the world

Look for ways to make connections during your nightly reading!

What are we Reading?

Every year my students LOVE hearing me read these two stories. 
They love that the main characters are animals.  They love that the animals are on adventures that include finding clues and solving problems.  They love the fabulous illustrations and the humor within each chapter.  

I have many reasons for choosing these great books.
Here are some of my thoughts...

1.  Great books motivate children to read.  And these books never fail to do just that.  Now that I've finished reading the first one, some of them are reading it aloud to each other during choice time.  And with fluency and character voices! Priceless!
2.  Great books keep children captivated and asking for more.  They can sit for a long time listening to these stories, but each day I shut the book just when the action gets good.  And we all yell "cliffhanger!" I love that they are getting the beauty of reading!

  I also have learning targets for the children that these books help me meet.
1. I can understand the importance of getting to know the characters in the books I'm reading and how this helps me predict what might happen next in a story.
2.  I can describe what a character trait is and I can share my character traits with other people.
3. I can write a family book including the character traits of my family members.
4.  I can notice who is talking in a story and I can sound like the character when I'm reading.

Ask your child about these 4 characters!  They should be able to describe these characters to you and share how they each help find the keys  to the Treasure Tree!

The Garden System: Time to Harvest

                              

Harvest time was so exciting for both first and second graders! Both grades were able to harvest the tomatoes, peppers, and onions that we started from seed last spring.

We have a good understanding now of how the garden is a system through books, observing our school garden and making notes in our scientific notebooks, and our visit to Mr. Leo's garden.  We continue to add pictures to the garden timeline in our room that helps us keep a visual of the progression of the plants and the system.

Thanks to Ms. Zina who prepared salsa for us to enjoy that was made from our harvested vegetables! It was delicious!

Camp Elim Fun!

Dear Crew,
What an enjoyable experience we had in the mountains together!  I loved having the opportunity to play with my children and to enjoy the beauty and fun at Camp Elim with them.  A HUGE thank you to the parents who chaperoned.  They were kind, helpful, and caring to me and to the children!

Reading Tool: Schema

 Using our schema to help us read and learn.
It's the file cabinet in our brains!

Schema is all of our background knowledge about the world.

Six and seven year olds don't have as much as we adults do, but they do have big files about their families, animals, and other things they have experienced so far in life.

When we bring our schema to the books we read, we "debug the book" by already having vocabulary and knowledge that will be talked about on every page. This makes the reading easier.  If we don't have schema about a book we want to read, then we have to slow down as readers in order to build schema and gather information to make a new folder in our brains.  Cool, huh?

First graders get this grown-up subject when I help them visualize it with the file cabinet in our room and my basic picture of our heads. 

At home, your child's schema can be activated by talking with your child about the books they read before, during, and after the reading.  So open those file cabinets and help your child create some new folders! Go to the library and enjoy talking about books with your child.

Reading Tool: Book Walk

The first day that I begin teaching reading tools, I wear my tool belt and talk about how using just one tool for a job doesn't always work.  The same thing is true when we read.  We need many tools in our tool belt in order to solve tricky words.  (this is not a video, just a screenshot) 


I want to begin sharing the reading tools that I'm teaching the children so you can support your reader at home. Here is the first one.

1.  Book Walking a Fiction Book:  Reading the title, checking out the back cover and title page, and looking through the pictures and talking about the story BEFORE reading any of the words.

This tool is powerful.  The story will be much easier to read when the reader already has some good ideas and predictions about the story and the characters.  Thinking about what the problem might be and how it will be solved will support the reader when they get to tricky words in the text.

Eventually the pictures go away as we begin reading chapter books.  Then we need to know how to make mental images for ourselves, and I'll be teaching everyone how to do this while they are reading.  We are all growing!

The Garden System: A Visit to Mr. Leo's Garden

Our visit to Mr. Leo's and Ms. Zina's garden in Sedalia was amazing.  Ms. Zina is our wonderful cafeteria director, and her husband, Mr. Leo, is a master gardener and beekeeper. 

They are very giving and gracious people.  Hosting 50 children at their home to walk the garden, see the bees, and eat homemade zucchini bread and honey from their own hives was a gift to all of us.  

Mr. Leo knows many secrets about gardening in CO.  We saw many vegetables such as artichokes, cabbage, cauliflower, two kinds of kale, corn, pumpkins and peppers, to name a few.

The children helped me write a thank you note to them.  Each child created a vegetable  to put onto the letter.  

Our crew is learning about the system of the garden. When you come in to visit, please check out the garden timeline and the big ideas we are working on as we learn about this system and how each part impacts the whole garden.

Nightly Reading: To, With, or By

Their are many ways to read books. At school, we listen to stories that I read aloud, the children share books as they buddy read, or the children learn to read in their heads as they begin to independently read.  

So far this year, my crew has become wonderful listeners of great stories, and they are kind buddy readers who love sharing their favorite books.

Beginning this week, I will teach them how to read independently.  It takes practice to learn how to read in our heads!  At first some of them may need to continue to whisper read out loud.  That's ok!  They will grow as we go.  

At this time I can expect them to independently read around 10 minutes.  By the end of the year they should be able to go at least 30 minutes of uninterrupted reading.  You can support your child by helping them practice this kind of reading now at home.

 I want to share the 3 kinds of reading that can be practiced at home each night as your child brings home their first reading books. 

 Reading aloud to your child is a way to grow your child as a reader.  Reading with your child is another.

When you read with, you could share the book by you reading one page, your child reading the next. This is often the way your child may choose to read right now as they are tired after a long day at school:) Finally, the reading can be done by your child. 

Important! Even with eager independent readers, reading aloud to your child will be important as they gain vocabulary and background knowledge of our world. Never stop reading aloud to your child! I want the nightly reading to be a snuggly, loving time. Choose whatever way that meets your child's needs.

Tips for Nightly Reading with Your Child

I grew up the oldest of five children.  I took to reading as a duck takes to water.  But this was not true for some of my siblings, and my son was not as enamored as my daughters were with books.  It took a while.

I'm a parent, just like you.  I want your at-home reading experience to go well for everyone.  I want it to be a time for building memories of love between you and your child.  This little book below says it well...

So, I guess what I want to say before sending that first book home is this is an opportunity to share love with your child.
There are no other expectations for your nightly reading! 
For those of you who want a bit more guidance, I'll offer some tips on the next post.

Books are love to me.  I hope your child will leave first grade feeling the same!

The Magic Has Begun....

A picture is worth a thousand words....

When I'm tired at night, I pull up this picture.  What joy to see three little boys, friends from K, sharing a book together.  

This is why I am here.  Well, one of the reasons.  To inspire and grow life-long readers.  It's my passion.  It is so rewarding for me, and such a gift for your child.

You might be wondering what I'm doing about reading. Am I teaching it?  What are your children working on in reading?

I often feel the pressure of performing "reading miracles" with every child I teach.  Phew!  This is a big order.  I take my job as a first grade teacher very seriously.  This year is a HUGE year for building your child's literacy foundation for life.  

Here is a peek into my mindset and plans for reading for the first half of this year.  The district would call this my "backward plan" for reading this year.  I want to share it with you so you have the big picture.

August: Reader’s Build Good Habits (What does reading look like, sound like? Who am I as a reader? Who do I want to be? How do I take care of books? Getting excited about reading!)

September:  Book Choice /Monitoring Growth/ Reading Tools (taking on new challenges in reading)

October:  Reading Tools/ Teaching how and building fluency/ Reader's Theatre

November: Thinking Strategies/ Growing a Sense of Story: Fiction

December:  Jan Brett:  Author Studies

January:  Poetry Genre Study?  Mental Images...or Wordless Books?

The picture of the boys above really shows what I've been doing with my children these first weeks of school.  I am reading lots of books to them.  The old fairy tale/folktales from long ago.  Rhyming books, poems, song books.  Books that make them laugh.  Books about people who love reading and those who might not like it yet.  Books that keep them spellbound. And they are reading to each other.

And with this, the magic has begun.  Every one of them is growing as a reader without any formal instruction.  I've been sitting with each one of them and taking notes on them as readers.  I've been out there with them, sharing my passion for books.  And it is catching!  This crew can read around the room for an hour at a time.  It thrills me to see it.

In the next couple of weeks, I'll begin formal instruction in small groups.  They will be ready by then. They are beginning to trust me and my love for them.  Once this is established, we can begin the job of taking on reading challenges.  Books will be sent home for nightly reading and I'll write another post that might help you with at home reading.  We are all readers!

The Hoola Hoop Lesson: Staying Safe and Happy:)

We are learning the importance of keeping our hands to ourselves and to mind our own business.  This is the lesson that I taught the children to help them with this.  I use the visual of a hoola hoop.

1.  We all have a hoola hoop around us. (I let them think of what theirs might look like...maybe purple with sparkles or maybe decorated with soccer balls:)
2.  Inside our hoop is our own business.  What we think, what we say, what we do.  Our only job is to take care of our own business and hoola hoop.
3.  We do not get into someone else's hoola hoop unless invited in.   

Now all I have to say to the children when problems arise is this:  "Are you in your own hoola hoop?"  Works like a charm.
You might want to use this at home too! 

Read / Write /Explore Time

Choice...we all want it.  But it's risky to let loose 25 wiggly, giggly little ones and allow them to explore the room and the learning activities that jazz them.

 But I'm willing to take that risk.  Because I know it empowers kids.

Here are some of the activities the kids are choosing in these early days.  As they choose, I learn about them as people and learners.

 I watch to see where they are at as collaborators and communicators.  I'm watching to see who sticks with what they start. I'm noticing who shows responsibility and stewardship.

I'm noticing...and loving getting to know each one of these precious children! We are off to a great start.