Well,
I've done it again ... run off to Pismo Beach for the weekend, where it's
warm and sunny. Saturday was a perfect beach day, and I walked on
the beach for several miles. Recent storms sent the waves all the
way up the beach to the cliffs, so the sand is packed hard and rock formations
seen only in the winter months are exposed -- in the summer, they're buried
under the soft dry sand.
During
the storms, the waves were reportedly as high as 35 feet along this part
of the central coast, causing the Diablo Canyon Nuclear Plant to shut down
because of a backwash of seawater into its system. Avila Bay, the
inlet to Diablo Canyon, is in front of the hill in the background of this
photo, just a few miles north of Pismo.
Saturday
night's sunset was beautiful, of course. In the winter months, the
sun is far enough south that it sets directly "in front" of the hotel --
which faces southwest -- making for wonderful photos. In the long
and lazy days of summer, the sun sets behind the hill north of Avila Bay.
At
school, we're having a central California winter, and we had hard frost
every morning last week, with temperatures hovering around freezing when
the KinderKids arrive. We don't have snow, but it sure is cold until
the clouds and fog burn off and the sun comes out later in the morning.
This
week's page has lots of great ideas and work samples from my Let
It Snow! unit, which I'm still putting together
for the thematic units section of the website.
We've
been very busy with snow and snowmen activities, as well as with our
Jan
Brett Author Study, which featured her story
The
Mitten this past week. Next week we'll continue with The
Mitten and begin a mini-unit centered around Brett's wonderful story
companion story, The
Hat.
We're
still doing activities from the
G is for Gingerbread
unit, too, which is a part of my
Jan Brett Author Study
for the months of December, January, and February. I used to complete
the unit in six to eight weeks, but the 1999 publication of Gingerbread
Baby and Fall 2000 publication of Hedgie's
Surprise have extended the unit another three or four weeks, meaning
we'll be working with Brett stories until sometime in February.
Although
I do fifteen to twenty "mini author studies" during the year, I enjoy exploring
three or four authors in depth with the KinderKids, which I believe gives
them a good foundation in the elements of story, character, plot, and setting,
along with helping them choose their own favorite authors and stories.
Current brain research shows that the more they learn about a specific
topic -- or, in this case, a specific author -- the more dendrites are
formed in their brains and the more connections they can make.
For
more information on how you can help your students make meaningful connections
between the curriculum and their personal experiences and knowledge, take
a look at Ellin Keene's excellent book,
Mosaic
of Thought ~ Teaching Comprehension in a Reader's Workshop.
This
week's page also features two terrific TLC Art Projects,
Language Experience activities, Shared Writing, Word Families and Word
Study, seasonal and thematic vocabulary, Song & Poetry literacy center
cards, pocket chart activities, and more January quilt patches, for those
of you who are collecting quilt ideas.
High
Frequency Word
List: a, am, an, and, are, big, blue, brown, by, can, candy,
can't, cap, circle, color, green, has, hat, hop, is, kid, like, likes,
little, my, name, on, oval, red, see, that, the, these, to, too, two,
we,
yellow, your
My brand-new
Winter
Wonderland Too! workshop packet, built around the following units:
Winter
Wonderland
Let It
Snow!
P Is For
Penguin
G Is For
Gingerbread
Nearly 200 pages
of Balanced
Literacy information and ready-to-use materials/reproducible masters
for
Song & Poetry Cards, Emergent Readers, Wonderful Winter Bingo,
Snowman
Bingo & Snowman Math Workjob created especially for this book,
Gingerbread
Man Shapes Zip Around Game, Interactive Pocket Chart Sets, Flash Cards,
writing activities, color-and-write pages, TLC art projects, and a
whole
lot more.
This resource
packet
is securely bound into a convenient book, so that you don't have to
worry
about pages getting out of order or misplaced.
We
never see the narrators, but they've been saving "good stuff in
a sack" and waiting for the perfect snowball day to build a whole family
of snow people.
There's
the Snow Mom and Snow Dad, big brother and baby sister, the family cat,
and my personal favorite, the family dog Spot, decorated with dozens of
bright buttons.
Ehlert's
simple text is wonderful for Shared Reading, and the kids ask for this
story several times a day. The illustrations are collages that inspire
lots of discussion and fun follow up activities and projects. Choose
from the inexpensive paperback
edition or the collectible hard
cover edition.
Ehlert's newest book,
published in May 2000, is the perfect partner to Snowballs
because of the wonderful textile and realia folk-art. The language
is evocative and my KinderKids love comparing this story with Snowballs,
which kicks off our Lois Ehlert Author Study, where
we revisit books by Ehlert we've read in the Fall and get ready to read
more of her stories the rest of the year. Be sure to read the Amazon.com
reviews
of Market
Day, they're terrific. Highly recommended!
I
introduced my Let It Snow unit with the interactive I Am A Snowman activity
on my thematic wall,
which
was up on the day the KinderKids returned from Winter Break:
Everyone
sat on the floor and we read the sentence strips together, emphasizing
the high-frequency words that we already "knew" from our Word Wall.
The only "unknown" words were snowman, cookie eyes, carrot nose, broom,
raisin mouth, and scarf. We already knew mittens
and the color words from other activities.
Then
we talked about snow and snowmen, to find out what the children already
knew. After everyone had a turn to share, we made a chart called
How To Build A Snowman:
The
following day, I read
Snowballs
during our morning circle time. Then we reviewed the How To Build
A Snowman chart, and discussed all the different things used in the new
story for making Snow "things," which we decided to call Snow______s.
Each child shared something they would like to use to decorate their own
personal Snow______, and we made a Language Experience Chart, emphasizing
the high-frequency word said, a, some, one, and two:
Working With Words Activities
We
brainstormed a list of "snow" words that were used in the book, and one
-- snowcow -- that wasn't:
I used orange marker for the
/ow/ phonogram,
pointing out that /ow/
was pronounced just like the letter O.
Then we added the word snowcow,
and the kids noticed right away that /ow/
had another sound, "ow as in cow."
We
then made a two-columned list of words that used the two different sounds
of /ow/.
Because
my KinderKids are at many different spots in the learning-to-read spectrum,
this made more sense to some kids than it did to others. Any children
who got bored or restless
were allowed to go quietly to their table to
read from their Book Boxes,
while the rest of the class finished the activity.
I
try to do lots of word family/working with words activities each week,
making at least one list a day of onset-and-rime words.
The more
we do it, the easier it gets for the kids -- at this time of year,
it seems
like someone new "gets it" each day, just like a little light came on inside
their head :o)
It's an exciting time of year!
Daily
practice and reinforcement of rimes is very important for phonemic awareness
and building blending and sounding-out skills, which are difficult to teach
in isolation.
I try, instead, to relate them to a story, song, or
poem that we're currently working with and enjoy.
Online
Projects & Links For Snowballs By
Lois Ehlert
Our
Favorite Snow Stories
We get lots of practice
finding the /ow/ phonogram in these books
...
Flannel
Kisses Simple rhymes contrasting
warm-and-cozy inside things with a snowy day from beginning to end
Snow
Dance A rhyming celebration
of snow with lots of "snow experiences" for kids who live where it never
snows
When
It Starts To Snow Another wonderful rhyming
story that tells what animals do when it starts to snow
The
First Snowfall A child-friendly snow
story by popular author Anne Rockwell
Grandmother
Winter Another Winter story
I love because of the language ~ just what my emergent readers and writers
are ready for at this time of year
Bunny's
First Snowflake Cutout illustrations
bring snowflakes to life with a childlike wonder
Winter
Snow
Written
and Illustrated by Vicki Witcher
This
is my enlarged version of a Vicki Witcher blackline book that the KinderKids
all have in their book boxes.
I introduce the story to the entire
group as a Big Book, and after reading it for a day or two,
I pass out
the individual books to the students and we choral read them together.
They
get further practice with the story during Guided Reading, Book Box time,
Literacy Centers,
and reading the story written on sentence strips in the
pocket chart.
Repeated readings build fluency, comprehension, sight
word vocabulary, decoding skills, and automaticity.
This
story can be chanted like a jump rope rhyme or sung to a modified version
of Twinkle Twinkle Little Star.
The basic pattern of _____
on the _____ makes a great frame for writing
thematic innovations throughout the year.
This
is a page from a very large (24" x 36") class-made Big Book called Ten
Little Snowmen Fat.
It's a counting
backwards book, sung to the tune of Five Green and Speckled Frogs.
I got this idea several years ago from Susie Haas, at a Wright Group Workshop.
Each
of the KinderKids draws several snowmen for me (on pre-cut paper, to limit
how large they can make them).
I cut them out to illustrate the pages,
which are made of sponge-painted easel/painting paper.
As with most
of my Big Books, I used two different colors for backgrounds, to make an
ABAB pattern.
Some years this book goes on the wall as a Wall Story,
and other years I hang it from an old chart paper stand
and the kids flip
the pages over the top as they read.
What Other Teachers Are Doing
These
terrific photos and ideas were shared by KinderKorner subscriber Kelly
Beggs,
who has a terrific website with pictures of things her kindergarten
class is doing.
You can find more of Kelly's winter ideas at
http://kindergarten2.homestead.com/winter.html
Marshmallow
Snowmen
Students
glue marshmallows and other candies in the shape of a snowman.
Snowflakes
are made by dipping a marshmallow in white paint and blotting it on the
paper.
Roll
A Snowman Activity
The
first student to complete their snowman wins. Fitting all the body
parts on the page can be a fun challenge!
Eskimo
Writing
Frame
the child's photo in a cupcake paper.
Igloo
made of milk jugs connected with a hot glue gun -- I'm hoping to try this
one next week!
More Snowman Projects From
My Classroom
Snowman
Math Workjob
The
"buttons" at the top are actually round white stickers with marker dots
for holes.
They help the kids know how many buttons to use, if they
haven't learned to read number words and/or numerals yet.
Torn
Paper Snowman
Use
thin white paint to spatter "snow" in the background.
Jan
Brett Author Study
We
began our Jan Brett study with Gingerbread
Baby in late November, and read all of Brett's Christmas-themed books
in December. In January, we're reading The Trouble With Trolls, The
Mitten, The
Hat, and Brett's newest book,
Hedgie's
Surprise, which the KinderKids loved.
In
February, we'll read a few more Brett titles, including Berlioz the Bear,
Armadillo Rodeo, and Comet's Nine Lives.
The
Mitten is based on an old Ukranian Folktale, and Brett's version is
filled with her wonderful trademark illustrations that bring the story
to life. As with all of Brett's books, the KinderKids really enjoy
the sidebar illustrations that show what's going on somewhere else in the
story.
This wonderful picture
of mittens from around the world comes from Lois Ehlert's Snowballs,
one of our other featured favorite January stories.
Click
Here To Visit
The SCORE Website Schools of California Online
Resources for Education
to find many units on core
literature for primary grades
Using
Jan Brett's blackline masters for a Design Your Own Mitten Activity,
the
KinderKids colored mittens then described them to fill in the following
writing frame:
Brett's drawings bring extra zest to
this popular story about a little boy who loses his mitten and all the
animals that crawl inside it to stay warm. Brett's website offers
downloadable coloring sheets and character masks for this book and other
Brett stories.
A feisty Tomten (who looks like a Troll
to me) is stealing all of Henny's eggs, which means she'll never have chicks
of her own. Hedgie helps Henny trick the Tomten and scare him away
for good. Beautiful illustrations lead to long discussions and wonderful
story predictions. Just released and already a favorite in my classroom
... We LOVE Hedgie!
A tale inspired by The
Mitten, and a lot of fun. Hedgie gets a sock stuck on his head
and suddenly ALL the animals want hats made of Lisa's laundry that's blown
off the clothesline. Sidebar illustrations show Lisa getting ready
for winter. Another classroom favorite we read over and over and
over again, and enjoy every time!
Illustration from next
week's featured story
The
Hat
Here
are the words to our January Good Morning Song:
Good
morning to the mittens,
Good
morning to the caps,
Good
morning to the cabin in the snow.
Good
morning to the igloo,
Good
morning to the sled,
Good
morning to the friendly Eskimo.
This Week's
TLC Art Projects
This
is a small section of our TLC art project wall, a year-long gallery featuring
a few of the many terrific TLC projects we do over the course of the school
year. This week we added Gingerbread Men and Martin Luther King,
Jr. Portraits.
The Gingerbread Man
Martin Luther King, Jr.
For more information on
TLC -- Teaching Little Children -- projects and artwork, visit
the TLC website.
A gently told story filled with evocative
language, with a Christmas theme to be enjoyed all winter. My class
loves to join in on the repeated line "The children know ..." Here
is snowless Bakersfield, this book has inspired the KinderKids to lie down
at recess and make sand angels :o)
By Jonathon London This is my very favorite Froggy story,
and the first one I ever heard. Froggy simply doesn't want to go
to bed for the winter, but he has a terrible time getting dressed, forgetting
one thing after another. Great for sequencing and choral reading,
and it even has the magic word for young children, UNDERWEAR! Also
available in a softcover
edition.
Little Sara loses her teddy bear in
the first snow of the season, while out helping Mommy feed the sheep.
Another class favorite ... we always like stories with teddy bears and
happy endings. A nice addition to your read-aloud library. Also available
in a hardcover
edition.
By Jack Prelutsky Seventeen poems about snowballs, ice
skates, scarves, snowflakes, and snowmen celebrate a child's delight in
snow. "This seasonal romp could shape classroom excitement come the first
snow or raise drooping spirits come the inevitable winter blahs."--Booklist.
My KinderKids like this one even more
than Brown
Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See? Lots of rhythm and rhyme for
building phonemic awareness while learning about the sounds animals
make.. Available as a Big
Book for Shared Reading, as a durable Board
Book for small hands.
A delicious collection of delightfully
illustrated poems by Douglas Florian, author of Insectlopedia,
Beast
Feast, On
The Wing, Mammalabilia,
Monster
Motel, and other wonderful poetry books loved by children of
all ages. Brand new and highly recommended.
Homework Calendar
(I can't find the photo of my
January Calendar!)
The artwork for our December
homework calendar is sponge paintings sprinkled with silver glitter.
