Who We Are: An Interest Led Day

Who We Are: An inquiry into the passions and interests of each child and developing an understanding of being bucket fillers through developing friendships. 

We began our day reviewing the letters we've learned (or reviewed) for the year already.  We've talked about the sight words we've introduced (the, a, I, my) and practiced using our reading strategies.  We are taking a mini break from adding letters this week and dove into interest led reading.  I utilize a site called ReadingA-Z.com where I can print books for kids.  Each child shared an interest and I did my best to find a book that supported that interest.  Then everyone was handed a yellow marker to highlight all the words that they could read in the story.  Some books were the "just right" reading level for the child and they could read all or almost all of the words.  Some books were too difficult and the child could mark only a portion of the words.  Find the book in your child's binder and help them read it if necessary.  If it's a too hard book, use it as a companion reading book.  That's where the adult reads all the words not highlighted and the kids read the words that are highlighted.  It gives the kids access to text that is interesting to them through your support.  Those books do not need to be returned to school.

 Then we turned to our body maps.  Our body maps are a growing collage of images that represent the things that are most important to us.  Having a lot of experience now following "how-to-draw" pages we found pages that represent things that are interesting to the kids and drew them on our body maps.  We also talked about drawing people so we could draw our families and friends.

 Side note: I have a USA map with 4 clocks representing the time zones and I totally freaked out when I looked up and saw that it was 5 after 3 and we were over time already.  Thankfulness then took over as I realized that I had referenced the wrong clock.  Phew!

 As we continue our work on number sense we've started playing with the 100 chart.  Right now we're only working on the numbers 1-20.  The first game the kids found super easy.  I pulled out all but a couple cards in the 1-20 section and then handed one card at a time to a child to put back in its correct home.  Our second game started the same way with the majority of the cards 1-20 being "blown" out of their "homes".  This time, however, I lined up the cards (out of order) on the floor and asked kids to find a certain number.  Using phrases like, "Raise your hand if you can tell me what number comes before 3." and "Raise your hand if you can tell me what number comes after 15." the kids took turns finding the correct number and putting it back where it goes.  This turned out to be MUCH harder than the first game.  For both games I always asked something like, "How did you know the number 16 went there?" or "How did you figure out what card you needed to pick up?"  These questions encourage mathematical language and kids begin to build a vocabulary around number sense.  Try to play games like this at home if you can!

Creative Learning in Preschool B

After our first week of school we are all ready to dive in working on blending letters again.  We started the day off playing with the word factory on Starfall.com on the SMARTboard.  We then read, "The Way I Act" again as a class to talk about all the words that we want to use to describe ourselves.  As we talked about the words that describe ourselves we started talking about things we love, things we like to do, and what we like to think and talk about.  This led right into our body maps.  We worked cooperatively to trace each other's outlines on huge sheets of paper.  Then we worked diligently to add symbols that represented who we are.  We're going to keep working on our body maps in school for another day or two to keep adding things that represent us.

 We had a great time learning the sight word "the" (or reviewing it) and talking about picture clues.  We are going to dive headfirst into our reading strategies on Thursday and picture clues is one of the strategies we can use.  Today we read, "Harold and the Purple Crayon" for our writing time.  As we started writing last week there was a lot of "I don't know how..." and "I can't do that..." when presented with their writing notebooks.  Through the story of Harold we talked about different ways to be creative, imaginative, and represent the ideas in our heads and hearts during writing time.

 I love that the kids get a chance to share their writing at the end of writing time.  There is so much good that comes from the opportunity to share one at a time about something that you created.  It also gives me a way to listen in to their thinking about what they were drawing and writing so I can make notes on the page when I date it at the end of writing.  Though we didn't have time to get to music (again...) we did have about 3 minutes before parents came and were able to build with the blocks and trucks for a short time.

I love how creative this class was today!  I hope we can continue building on the positive energy around learning and identifying ourselves as curious, responsible, compassionate, brave, trustworthy, friendly, persistent, respectful, cooperative, capable, active, considerate and imaginative!

A Deeper Look Into Inquiry Blocks

We had a fantastic back to school day today and afterwards I received an email requesting more information about the inquiry blocks we'll be talking about.  It is a bit of an abstract idea, not nearly as concrete as studying a topic or theme per day like the last 3 years has been with these kids.  So I decided that I'd put the ideas in my head down in writing and share the details with everyone.

This year, in both Preschool and Kindergarten, we'll be spending approximately 6 weeks working through an inquiry block. The blocks include:

• Who We Are
• Where We Are In Place And Time
• How We Express Ourselves
• How the World Works
• How We Organize Ourselves
• Sharing the Planet

These ideas are very vague and are so intentionally.  As we start talking about a subject one idea or another may stick as a highly interesting subject for the class and we have the ability to stay with the idea until we have exhausted it or stumble upon something else more interesting.  In my Kindergarten Yearly Scope I have defined each of these blocks as:

• Who We Are
• Inquiry into noticing and naming, identity and passions, relationships and cultures including families, friends, and communities.  A focus on how families and friends are important and help each other. 
• Where We Are In Place And Time
• Inquiry into personal and family histories; advances in communications (letter, telegraph, house phone, cell phone, computer phone). Past, present, future: yesterday, today, tomorrow.
• How We Express Ourselves
• Inquiry into the ways we express ourselves through ideas, feelings, appearances, actions and the arts. A focus on the many ways to tell a story.
• How the World Works
• Inquiry into different kinds of materials and how they change. A focus on water and temperature causing changes, being scientists and researchers to make and test guesses, using senses to make observations.
• How We Organize Ourselves
• Inquiry into the jobs people do and how organizations are developed to address the needs and wants of a community. A focus on the classroom community and jobs that need to be done to keep our environment clean and a safe place to learn. 
• Sharing the Planet
• Inquiry into resources (elements) on Earth. Needs and wants of all living things and how they are connected to other living things and their environment. 

Kindergarten and preschool will vary throughout the year as each class will latch upon different key ideas and desire to focus on differing aspects of the inquiry block.

The ideas floating around preschool are far from concrete.  I have an umbrella of projects and will be looking for the interest-led spark that will lead our discussions, impact our writing and art and show up in our science lessons.

In preschool this year you can expect some, but not all, of the following ideas to be explored:

• Who We Are
• Conversations about being "Bucket Fillers" and developing friendships.  
• Passions and interest of each child.
• Where We Are In Place And Time
• How things haven't always been the way they are today and things will change in the future.
• Possible exploration of communication and its changes over time.
• Exploration of family in terms of siblings, parents and grandparents.
• Vocabulary: Yesterday, Today, Tomorrow
• How We Express Ourselves
• A study on emotion and actions/reactions.
• Color and Music
• Friends/Bucket fillers
• Telling stories
• How the World Works
• Magnets
• Simple Machines
• Properties of water at different temperatures
• Plants
• Insects
• How We Organize Ourselves
• Community helpers: firemen/police/librarians, etc.
• Jobs we do around our homes and in school to help out: cleaning up messes, sharpening pencils, setting the table
• Responsibility for one's self
• Sharing the Planet
• Space
• Friends/Bucket Fillers
• Treating animals and property with respect
• Serving others to help impact a positive environment 

I am really excited to explore these ideas within our preschool class as we continue learning to read and understand the world around us.  I hope you follow along on our journey of exploration!