A Really Cool Idea!

If you read my literacy blog, then you have probably already seen this post.  I'm sharing it with my kindergarten friends because I think this website is awesome for young writers!  The process is really very easy.  We have a scanner at home, but you could also do this by taking pictures of your child's artwork. 

Here's the post:

Yep, my daughter is a published author.  Her first addition, hardbound book, arrived in the mail yesterday.  She dedicated her book to her family.  Awww.



Ok, so the truth is, I found this GREAT website, run by Barnes and Noble.  It's called Tikatok.  I showed it to my daughter and we were able to read several featured stories, written by other kids.  She was so excited to get started!  I'll walk you through the process in a future post.  For now, you should just check out the site.  (By the way, I don't receive any compensation from the company.  I was just really excited to find this resource.)

I can't even begin to tell you the smiles and giggles coming from my little girl, when her book arrived.

There's even a great About the Author page on the back of the book.

Oh, so much fun!  I'll try to get a post out, this weekend, including the nuts and bolts of how this works.  It's pretty cool, very simple, and highly motivating for young writers.

Happy writing!

We're Authors!

Over the past few weeks, we've been really diving into our books by Gail Gibbons.  If you're not familiar with her work, take a trip to the library and find a few.  They are great for inspiring young authors and illustrators!

We talked about the way Gail Gibbons divides up the page to show different things.  Sometimes she shows a sequence of events.  Other times she shows different things, on a common topic. 



We've been noticing how often she uses labels in her illustrations, which we've been adding to our work as well.

During our Writer's Workshop time, I encourage kids to try a few of these ideas.  I don't require that they try something new, but wait for kids to show an interest and then nudge them in that direction.  Using authors as mentors in our writing has really made us fabulous authors!

With Spring upon us, we went outside this week to do a little research.  We looked for signs that Spring is here.  Each child had 4 sticky notes, and there job was to find 4 different things that reminded them of Spring.  We've been reading lots of Spring books in the classroom, so they knew what to look for. I told the kids that the sticky notes were just to keep their ideas on.  They didn't need to be fancy pictures, just a quick sketch and a label.

The next day, I began modeling how we can turn these four ideas, on four sticky notes, into a four page book.  Again, we looked to Gail Gibbons for inspiration and several kids were ready to try something new with their writing and illustrating.

 

In the next picture, this student is showing how a plant grows and changes.  We spotted some hyacinths in one of our planters.  He told me he didn't know, for sure, if this is what it would look like as it was growing, but that he was using his schema about plants to make his guess.  I just about melted into a puddle on the floor, when I heard those words come out of my little guy's mouth!  Happy teacher!

We talked about how Gail Gibbons usually has a sentence on each page, in addition to her illustrations and labels.  This page is a work in progress. "A little plant is growing."

This student wrote, "I see stuff in Spring."  He told me that for the first page of the book, he wanted to include 4 different things he sees.  Then he'd do some close up pictures on the next pages.  This was another of the ideas Gail Gibbons uses in her books. 

This one is a little more difficult to read.  The first sentence says, "I see trees."  Then he made three different pictures, in a sequence of events.  The first one shows a dirt mound and a seed, with labels. Then, a little plant growing, and finally a tree.

All of these kids are continuing to work on their books.  I wanted to take pictures of their work in progress to show you what we've been up to.  The kids know that writing is hard work in kindergarten!  We have learned to build our stamina for writing, and not expect to be finished in the first ten minutes with a project.  We have learned to use authors as mentors and think like writers.  Most importantly, we're authors!

Happy writing!

Three Days Off

Hello Families!

It's conference time, and I've been busily meeting with a few families today.  While, I'm here working, many of you are at home with your kids.  What will you be doing on these days off?  (If you're stuck at work, like me, just keep thinking that it's almost the weekend.)

If you do happen to be at home with the kids, and you're looking for something fun to do, I always recommend the zoo, aquarium, or science center.  If you're looking for something a little less expensive, like FREE, then I'd like to suggest a trip to Bothell Feed Center. (by Fred Meyer's at Thrasher's Corner)  We have a pet bunny at home.  This is Cookie.


I buy everything we need for Cookie at Bothell Feed Center.  I'm a farm girl at heart, so making the trip to the local feed store just feels better than going to a big chain pet store.  Anyway, I was at Bothell Feed Center last week and can you guess what they had there?  BABY CHICKS!  I was soooo close to taking a few chicks home and telling my hubby he had to build a chicken coop. 


Heading to Bothell Feed Center would make a GREAT field trip over the next few days.  As an extension, here are a few questions you might want to ask your child:

What is something that you can do that a baby can't do?
What are some ways we take care of babies until they can care for themselves?
How do you think you would care for a baby chick, or another baby animal?  (This would be a great question to ask at the feed center too.)
Where did you sleep when you were a baby?
Where do baby animals sleep?
How do animals stay warm at night?
Where do you think a bird might sleep?
How do you think birds make their nests?
What do you think they use to make their nests?

The conversations could be endless!  I love to talk with curious kids.  They are full of wonder and excitement about learning.  Turning a simple trip to the pet store into an inquiry project is really exciting for kids.

Here are a few books you might want to track down too:









Here's a great idea for helping the birds too!



And here is the link to the original post, if you'd like to read more about it.  By the way, Bothell Feed Center has an excellent supply of wild bird food, if you're interested in feeding the birds.


Have your kids create a stuffed animal play area in your house.  Encourage them to show what they know about how animal parents care for their babies.

The possibilities are endless!  I hope you're enjoying your time with your kids and finding some wonderful learning experiences to fill your days!  We'll see you all on Monday, and I hope you have great stories to tell about your days off. 

Happy Field Tripping!

Writer's Worshop in March

After wrapping up our cooking unit, we are shifting our focus to other nonfiction topics.  In our Guided Reading groups, many students read this book about life at the beach.

In our whole class discussion, our conversation was about the author's purpose.  We decided that the author must really love the beach.  She must know a lot about the beach too.  Some kids even suggested that she may live at the beach.  At the very least, they decided she must have visited the beach at some time and just wanted to share her excitement about it.

As kindergarten authors, we are doing the same thing!  We are taking topics we know a lot about, and turning them into books.  Of course there is a range of topics. 

 Cats, dogs, butterflies, birds, and rainbows seem to be the favorites.  Kids are also writing about their favorite sports, games they love, and we even have one "sleep expert" in our class.

Prewriting, in kindergarten, looks very different than it does in older grades.  Most of our prewriting is done verbally.  One of my favorite ways to plan out a story, is to tell the story across your fingers.  We touch our thumb and say the title of the story.  The four remaining fingers represent one idea as well as one page of the book.

I'm working on uploading a video to demonstrate this.

Happy writing!

Nonfiction Reading Lesson Objectives

Well, the title of this post sounds like the most boring entry you could possibly read!  While the title sounds incredibly boring, the content is anything but boring.  Our reading lessons for the week have to do with nonfiction books about animals.

Everyone knows that kindergarteners LOVE animals.  Of course, their love of animals encourages a love of animal books.  This week, in our reading program, we're reading Animals in Their Habitats.


Our objectives are to:

*build vocabulary related to animals
*summarize information
*build oral language
*identify and discuss nonfiction text features

As much as the kids like this book, they REALLY like the other animal books we have around our classroom.  My favorite animal books are the DK books.  Here's a link to Amazon, to see a few good titles. Many of these books are available at the public library as well.

A good way to add books to your home library is to visit the gift shops when you go on an outing.  A few weeks ago, when I took my kids to the aquarium, I let them each pick out a new animal book on the way out.  This is a book my daughter has come back to many times in the past few weeks.  She can almost read it by herself now. 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
As you're reading with your child, make sure you point out things like table of contents, bold words, or the glossary.  Talk about new words and see if they can relate their learning to something they already know.  For example, one of the books we read today, described a polar bear's paws as webbed.  Many kids knew that frogs' feet are webbed too, which helps them to swim.  We learned this in a book we read last month and kids were able to use their schema and make that connection.
 
Of course, cookbooks are a great type of nonfiction book too!  This is another great opportunity to discuss text features in cookbooks!  (More on this later in the week.)
 
Happy reading!

Baking Up Some Zucchini

Our cooking project of the week was baked zucchini.  We made this recipe on Wednesday and wrote about it on Thursday.  I was pleasantly surprised at how many of the kids said they really liked this!


I sliced the zucchini and put it into a Ziploc bag.  We sprayed some olive oil on the zucchini slices and then added the yummy stuff.  We sprinkled in a little Parmesan cheese, some bread crumbs, a little bit of all purpose seasoning, and a pinch of salt.  We zipped up the bag and shook it like crazy.  (Of course, the kids loved this part!)

We baked them at 350 degrees for 10 minutes, and snack was ready.  The kids loved these and even asked for seconds!  We're not quite done writing about this recipe, so I'll share it when we finish up.

Happy cooking!

Goldfish Bowls

What do you get when you combine rice cakes, blue frosting, and goldfish crackers? You get a lesson in cooking, writing, and sequence of events, if you're in kindergarten. Of course, you get a yummy snack too.

Last week, kids followed simple food prep instructions to create their own snack.

This activity ties in nicely with our cooking unit as well as our reading work in sequencing. If you have kids' cookbooks at home, point out to your kids how their work, following a recipe, is the same as following a recipe in a cookbook!

Keep cooking at home! The kids love sharing the things they're making!