Celebrating the life and work of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
Since the first day of school we have been talking about what it means to be kind, safe, and fair and how we are the same and different from the people in our lives and from people all over the world. During the next two weeks, we will talk about the civil rights work of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. We will watch a BrainPop Jr video, read several books, learn two poems and have discussions about how our world has changed for the better because of brave and persevering people like Dr. King. If you are interested in extending this important learning at home, here is a great resource. http://www.tolerance.org/activity/dos-and-donts-teaching-black-history |
Reading & Retelling Childrens' Choice books
The Kindergarten Common Core Student Standards expect K readers to be able to understand Key Ideas and Details in the stories we read. Specifically, with prompting and support we want them to be able to:
Our Readers' Workshop will focus on retelling later in the year, so this will be an early attempt at this challenging skill. By the end of the year, I want all of my students to be able to retell what happened in the beginning, middle and end of a book, and be able to include details about the setting and characters (how they felt, why they did what they did). For these early attempts, however, the students may not meet all of these standards, but we didn't want that to hold us back from sharing our ideas for this authentic and motivating purpose. Enjoy and feel free to leave us comments! |
We Are Scientists Exploring Fabric!
Last week, we launched our first science unit ~ Exploring Fabric! We used our senses to explore the properties of 10 different kinds of fabric: organza, corduroy, seersucker, fleece, nylon, burlap, satin, terrycloth, knit & denim. The students noticed how the fabrics looked (shiny, sparkly, see through) and felt (soft, smooth, slippery, scratchy, rough) and sounded (like bats wings) and smelled (hmm - fabric "explored by lots of other kindergarteners prior to us did not smell so great!) and recorded their observations during our Science writing workshop time using pictures and words. We used feely boxes to compare how our fabrics are the same and different and went on a fabric hunt to help us match different fabrics. We also put different fabrics together to make fabric collages. |