Learning Letters

 

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One of the biggest focuses for Kindergarten teachers during the first half of the year is learning letter names and letter sounds. Once we have this foundation in place our students can start to learn how to read. We have a wide range of abilities when it comes to our entering kindergarten students. We might have a few students who know all of the letters and sounds. Some students that know half of their letters and sounds. Then we have some students that do not know a single letter or sound. It makes for an interesting beginning of the year. Most parents also don't realize that students need to know 52 letters, rather than 26 letters. They don't take in account that a student has to know upper and lower case letters. While the letter "Oo" upper and lowercase look the same besides size, the letter "Gg" do not look anything alike. I am always trying to find fun and new ways to helps students learn there letters. Starting to learn letters isn't just for students entering Kindergarten. Younger kids can begin to learn and recognize their letters at a young age.

Here are some different ways to begin helping your child at home:

 

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While reading books with your child, point out different letters throughout the book. There are so many great alphabet books out there to help with this.

 

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While going grocery shopping or while you are out and about take notice of environmental print. Ask your child what letters they see around them. It only takes a few minutes to do. Where I live there is a big letter "T" on the mountain for our town. My daughter takes notice of this every time we drive by it.

 

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Help your child to recognize the first letter in their name. This gets the child excited each time that they see this letter. I also do this with the first letter in my name and my husband's name as well. Your child starts to take notice of these letters.

 

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Bath time foam letters are also a fun way to incorporate letters into your everyday routine. There isn't extra prep time to build in, just do it during bath time.

Is it already that time.........??

This is how parents feel:

 

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This is how teachers feel:

 

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 I hope I am not the only one who feels this way, but I can't believe August is rapidly approaching. Every time I walk into Walmart or any store for that matter, all I see is back to school stuff. I turn on the computer and all I see are back to school ads. 

I love planning my room, and getting new students that are so excited to be there, but why does summer have to end so quickly? This is my very first full summer off from working. For the past three years I taught summer school for the majority of the summer. However, this summer I didn't work and it was amazing! I was able to get so much done, when I wasn't doing homework for three classes. I was able to take my daughter and do so many fun activities that we rarely get to do during the school year. It was fantastic, but now I am having the end of the summer blues. This summer went by more quickly than the summers have in the past. 

Does anyone else have this same feeling? Or are you itching to get back in the classroom already?

Master's Degree

Why did you decide to pursue your Master's degree?

Brain Breaks

 

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My Kindergarten students love to move and wiggle throughout the day. I don't get my students for very long, only 2 and half hours a day, but in that short time we often need to get on our feet and stretch. Sometimes we do stretching as a class, or we count to 100 in groups of 10 using different actions (jumping jacks, hopping, touching our toes, etc.). Their favorite though is our brain break videos. I got the idea after watching my Mom do it with her second graders. I knew my students would love it too! Here are a few "Brain Break" videos that help to us get through our day. These videos are pretty silly, but that is the fun part of teaching Kindergarten, you can be super silly and the kids love it.

"Gummi Bear"

"Dancing Robot"

 

"Boom Chicka Boom"

  

The Polar Express

Every year during the month of December we teach one of my favorite's unit: The Polar Express based upon the book by Chris Van Allsburg. 

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The week before the unit we send the students home with golden tickets that tell them about our Polar Express day. The students show up to school dressed up in their pajamas. Our whole day is focused around the book. First we read the book The Polar Express on tape.

(This isn't the exact audio I use. I use a book on CD read by Liam Neeson)

 Then we do hot chocolate addition and subtraction using mini marshmallows as manipulatives. We write in our journals about Christmas related topics. Then we enjoy hot chocolate while we listen to the book being read on a video via the SMART board from the Barnes and Noble Read Aloud Section

While reading the book twice in one day might seem a bit redundant, repetition is important for younger students. At the end of the day they each receive their own gold bells to take home to see if they still believe in the magic of Christmas. 

 

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 Our polar express day takes a lot of work because the students come to school so excited that day (and full of lots of energy), but in the end the hard work is worth it to see how much fun they had during the day.

David Shannon

As a Kindergarten teacher I have several favorite authors. We read multiple books every single day in my classroom. It is difficult to pick just one author that I love. However, I decided to focus on one author for today's blog post. 

David Shannon

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I thought I owned all of David Shannon's books, until I was trying to find images online. I guess there are a few more books I need to purchase this fall to add to my collection. My kindergarten kiddos just love his books. Most of his stories are pretty comical, which is probably why my students love his books. I like that they aren't too long so they keep their attention throughout the entire book. My favorite part of his books are the illustrations, he is an amazing artist.  If you don't teach younger grades and have never read a David Shannon book, I highly recommend that you check some of them out. Here are some of his books:

 

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 These two pirate books are actually written by Melinda Long but David Shannon was the illustrator.

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Is Technology Changing Our Brains?

For my Ed Tech 537 class, we were asked to respond to this blogpost/question.

While technology hasn't changed the way our brains work, it has changed the way we work and live in the world.  Technology can help us to do our jobs quicker and more accurate than ever before. 

Technology is fantastic, but it isn't what teaches our students. Instead our students still need to be taught how to effectively use the different technology to learn. Technology helps us to give our students the world at their finger tips. By incorporating technology into the classroom our students now have access to information that they might not have had access to. They get to experience a whole new world that might not have been possible before. 

Students don't have to learn in the same boring way that we once had to learn. No lectures and taking notes while the teacher talks super fast. Students should not have to learn that way. They should be encouraged to take control of their learning. They can do this by using technology in the classroom. If students are taught how to successfully use technology that is around them everyday, they will be more proficient adults in the work force.  

Students' brains are the same as they always have been, but now they are adapting the way they interact and live to live in a world filled with technology all around them.

Mentor Texts-Guest Blog

Karen Notte is a third grade teacher on the Rocky Boy Indian Reservation in northern Montana. She will be starting her seventh year of teaching this fall. She earned her Masters degree in Literacy Specialist at University of Buffalo in Buffalo, New York.

     In today’s diverse classroom, students are expected to think critically about the texts they are reading, and produce authentic writing pieces that illustrate an understanding of a writer’s craft and structure. I think one of the most powerful tools to teach students the skills and strategies of proficient readers and writers are found in a teacher’s own classroom library-mentor texts. A mentor text is a piece of literature that is used as a model to students what you may want your own students to achieve in their thinking and writing.
     As a third grade teacher, I primarily use picture books and parts of chapter books to showcase a technique that I want my readers and writers to try. A few of my favorite authors I use are Chris VanAllsburg, Patricia Polacco, and Cythina Rylant. Once I perform a read aloud of a mentor text, I will revisit the same text throughout the year as models. For example, when teaching the reading strategy of making inference, and asking questions, I use Chris Van Allsburg’s book The Stranger. I use the book in two different sessions to teach each strategy. I consider Chris VanAllsburg almost as a “mysterious” writer, so I think his writing really makes readers “read between the lines,” and ask questions. I also use his book The Sweetest Fig to teach students about character traits.
     Patricia Polacco’s books are great mentor texts to illustrate personal narrative writing. Most of Polacco’s picture books are inspired by her real life family experiences. I begin reading her books in order to illustrate to my writers where published writers get their ideas from. In addition to writing, Polacco’s books are effective mentor texts to teach the reading strategy of making connections. I have read My Rotten Red Headed Older Brother and modeled to students text-to-self connections with my own brothers.
To illustrate figurative language and strong leads in writing, I look to Cynthia Rylant. In her story The Relatives Came, she begins her book with a setting lead:

           “It was in the summer of the year when the relatives came. They came up from Virginia. They left
       when  their grapes were nearly purple enough to pick, but not quite.”
  
       Listen to that description of her story! I hope my writers use this kind of description in their own writing after reading her lead multiple times.

      Mentor text are an easy, powerful tool to use with your readers and writers. Students at all levels are able to take away some skill and strategy from the mentor text the teacher uses as a read aloud.

Moving State Testing to Computers?

    This year my state began to do state testing via the computer. Not all the schools had to do this new computer testing, just the schools that were to "test" out the program. Lucky (or unlucky however you see it) my school was able to test out the new state testing program. 

     I am a huge fan of technology so naturally I was all for the computer testing. It seems like everyone should be incorporating more technology into the classroom and computer testing would force teachers to do it.

     However, I did not think of all the trouble that would go into implementing new computer testing. First, our teachers had to get all on board. Even if they didn't like this way of testing, they had no other choice. They had to get familiar with the program and style, and then they had to teach their students how to test on the computer. They had to have many practice sessions before they had their students take the actual test. So not only were teachers teaching students the content for the test, but also how to take the test itself. Second, our school had a lack of computers. Half way during the year we had to have a new computer lab installed to accommodate this new testing. This sounded like a great thing to me, more computers for our school! Yes! Just what I had been waiting for.  In reality this meant that the lower grades, mine included, actually were going to get kicked out of the computer labs because of this testing. More often than not, the lower grades missed computer lab time several weeks in a row. I completely understand that they get computers lab time over us to take the test, but this means that students are going to get less exposure and less computer skills in the lower grades. If we are trying to get our students more proficient in technology, we should be using more of it not less. Finally, the writing portion of the test was also on the computer. Most of the students don't have the best keyboarding skills. Some students were more worried about their typing rather than what they writing about. 

    I am sure there are more problems and stress that came with this new way of testing, but since I don't teach an upper lever grade my student do not complete this testing. Last year was just a test year, next year it is be used by the entire state. It will be interesting to see how this testing will be played out in my state this coming school year.

Technology Tools

My love for technology started after I bought myself an iPad during my second year of teaching. 

    I had never used one before but I realized right away how beneficial it could be in the classroom. After searching long and hard for great educational apps for my students I found a few that fit the bill. After downloading useful math and reading apps I started bringing it in everyday to school (and a hard case to protect my iPad from all the bumps, drops and gross finger prints that happen with 5 year olds). 

   Each day I would let one student use the iPad when during Universal Access time. They also got to use the iPad when they finished their work. We had a list and would rotate through the class list to ensure everyone received a turn. 

   This was a great motivator for my little kindergarten students. I love how easy it was use for them to use. No mouse and no big computer. After a few short sessions of how to use and operate the iPad, and lets not forget our new rule of "if your don't stay on the correct apps then you lose your iPad privileges", my students were ready to roll. 

    My students were hooked. I created different folders for math and reading apps. Depending on what skills they needed to work on, they had a choice of different apps to play. 

    This was by far my favorite way to incorporate such an awesome technology tool into my classroom. I didn't have wifi at my school so I did have to make sure I had the apps already downloaded and that the app didn't require wifi to operate it. Other than that it was a dream in the classroom. I find that incorporating technology tools in Kindergarten  can be somewhat tough. The iPad allowed the students to use the technology without me having to do the all work for them. They were able to become independent and learned how it worked very quickly.

What is your favorite technology tool to use in the classroom and why?

Top Apps for Younger Kids

Top Apps for Younger Kids:

•          Interactive Alphabet
•          Farm 123 Free
•          Play 123
•          Play Lab
•          Paint Sparkle
•          PBS Kids
•          Bugs and Buttons
•          Bubbles and Buttons
•          PB Shapes
•          Hungry Fish
•          Counting Dots
•          Letter School
•          Alien Buddies
•          Backyard Phonic Adventure
•          Little Speller
•          Hooked on Phonics
•          Early Learning Academy*
•          Duck Duck Moose
•          Kids Academy The Three Little Pigs
•          CJ Educations Phonics Fun
•          Apps Gone Free (Not for kids, but everyday it is a list of apps that are free for the day) 

*Requires a yearly membership