A discussion about play-based literacy learning in the kindergarten classroom. What that looks like, what it means and how it works in my classroom.
A discussion about play-based literacy learning in the kindergarten classroom. What that looks like, what it means and how it works in my classroom.
A discussion about play-based literacy learning in the kindergarten classroom. What that looks like, what it means and how it works in my classroom.
A discussion about play-based literacy learning in the kindergarten classroom. What that looks like, what it means and how it works in my classroom.
Use hands-on and engaging activities with math manipulatives to reinforce one-to-one correspondence skills, number formation, counting and more!
Hi friends! I'm back to share some photos of what we have been up to in our classroom this week! 1. SENTENCE JENGA I have a high group of kiddos this year where most of my kids know all of their letters and sounds (even the JKs) and are working on sight words and reading sentences. So I decided to try this centre out to challenge the students who needed more than letter work! Students are invited to make a sentence with the jenga blocks and record their sentences on the whiteboard. They are also encouraged to draw a picture to match and to show their comprehension. I got the jenga blocks from Dollarama and wrote the words on them with flair pens. 2. COLOUR WORD PLAY DOUGH MATS My kiddos love play dough so I'm always trying to switch up the mats and invitations at the play dough centre to keep it fresh! This week we used these colour word mats to practice building colour words and reading simple sentences. You can find my colour word play dough mats by clicking here or on the image below: 3. FARM ANIMAL INQUIRY During our trip to the pumpkin farm, one of my students asked "Do cows have any predators?" I loved this question so when we got back to our classroom I shared his question with the kids and asked if anyone else had any questions about something they saw at the farm. The kids came up with so many good questions! So we delved into our first full inquiry project! First we sorted the questions into categories (pig questions, sheep questions, chicken questions etc.) and started our research! We learned what pigs eat and what eats pigs: (We did a t-chart as a class and I had students volunteer to come record one new learning on a index card.) We learned if horses have good eyes or not, what they eat and if they have predators: We learned that chickens are birds but they do not fly: And we learned what sheep eat: We used books, websites and videos to research answers to our questions. I realized we forgot to record the answer to our original question "Do cows have predators" now that I'm looking over the board more carefully but we did talk abut it and read an excerpt from a website about it! I had lots of people on Instagram ask if I could share this inquiry research writing template. I've uploaded it to my TPT store. You can click here or on the image below to check it out: 4. FARM SMALL WORLD PLAY During our farm inquiry, I also set up this farm small world play centre for the students to create a farm story and to show what they know about farms. Students loved this centre and loved making farm stories here! One of my girls even wanted to record her farm story in writing! She worked so hard on it so we decided to put it up on our inquiry board! 5. WONDER WALL I'm currently participating in a book club for the book "The Curious Classroom" by Harvey Daniels. In our board, if you attend the book club (usually 2 sessions after school) you get the book for free! I've been wanting to check this book out for a while so I jumped on it as soon as registration opened! It has a lot of practical tips for teachers who want to do inquiry based learning in all grades! I highly recommend it for K teachers but 1-8 teachers as well! Anyway, our homework for the first book club was to try one activity from Chapter 3 and bring back how it went to the second book club. I've always made wonder charts with the students whole group when wonders were not coming up authentically through play and day to day conversations, but never released the work entirely to the kids. With this wonder chart, students can grab a post it note anytime (during centre time) and write what they are wondering about! Of course the JK's will still need help, and some are not writing questions (I have one girl who keeps just writing her name and sticking it up there... lol) but I will scribe for them or I have one of my stronger SK students scribe for them if I'm busy running a guided group. So far they have loved the ownership and new questions are popping up everyday! I'm looking forward to finishing the book soon and trying more activities from this book! 6. CYBER SALE + A GIVEAWAY While I'm here, I just wanted to share that I'm doing a super quick giveaway on my Instagram page. You can enter for a chance to win a $10 TPT gift card and an item of your choice from my TPT store, just in time for the TPT cyber sale happening this Monday and Tuesday! Click here or on the image above to read details on how to enter! That's it from me this week! I hope you are having a great Sunday! - Yukari
Social-emotional activities have never been more important for younger kids.
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A discussion about play-based literacy learning in the kindergarten classroom. What that looks like, what it means and how it works in my classroom.
A discussion about play-based literacy learning in the kindergarten classroom. What that looks like, what it means and how it works in my classroom.
Let's advocate for play-based learning in primary education! Explore the benefits of play, & how it enhances creativity, emotional regulation, & academic rigor.
A discussion about play-based literacy learning in the kindergarten classroom. What that looks like, what it means and how it works in my classroom.
It’s time to talk about phoneme isolation! Yay! This is the third post in the series, 3 Important Skills Kids Need for Reading. *This post contains affiliate links. What is a Phoneme? The smallest unit of sound in the spoken language is a phoneme. A phoneme can be created by one letter, such as b: ... Read More about Playing with Sounds in Words- Part 1 {Phoneme Isolation}
A discussion about play-based literacy learning in the kindergarten classroom. What that looks like, what it means and how it works in my classroom.
What is Inquiry Based Leaning in Kindergarten? In simple form, inquiry-based learning is more of a student-directed way of learning rather than teacher-directed. In some cases, the teaching team may set the general framework for learning, but for the most part, the learning is based on the students questions, ideas and passions. This is similar to the emergent curriculum if that is a term you are more familiar with. Rather than working off set lesson plans that are theme-based and not necessarily developmentally appropriate for all children, your teaching is guided by the students interests thus making the learning more meaningful to them. We know from research that children achieve optimal learning when they are given plenty of opportunities to become fully engaged in their play. Most often while children are engaged, their natural curiosity of the world around them comes forth. They take notice of everything and have a beautiful sense of wonder about people, places, objects, and nature. Through noticing and wondering, the children come up with questions and observations about their thinking. It is important that children are given the opportunity to investigate their inquiry, gather information, make observations and share their findings with others. It is the role of the teaching team in kindergarten to act as facilitators. We use these opportunities of inquiry to help guide the children with more open-ended questions allowing them to extend and clarify their thinking and make connections, while modeling the inquiry process. We provide the children with the tools, materials and resources they need to investigate these inquiries. What is the Inquiry Process? The Full Day Early Learning Kindergarten Program clearly defines the inquiry process in the curriculum document and I have included the table for you below: There is also an article I enjoyed named "The Plan: Building on Children's Interests" by Hilary Jo Seitz through NAEYC, that you can read here, that offers a very interesting perspective on the inquiry process. It has many similarities to the one in the Full Day Kindergarten document, but I enjoyed the way Hilary explained her four step process. I also now love the term SPARKS which refers to anything that promotes deeper thinking. Open-Ended Questions to Promote Inquiry The key to open-ended questions is that they promote further thinking and explanation. Questions that begin with "what, why, how, if etc." are usually open-ended questions. Anything that can be answered with yes or no are typically closed-ended questions and a lot of the time may begin with "can, do etc." I created the sheet above to carry with me on my clipboard when I am doing observations during the day as a reminder or suggestion. Very quickly these just became natural for me and it is just part of my normal conversations throughout the day with the children. This certainly won't be my last post on inquiry, but I hope this answers some questions for those who were wondering just what inquiry-based learning is.
I was talking with a friend about today about how I did literacy centers this year so I decided I would share with all of you as well. In my tiny 2 year career, I have gone through many MANY different methods of doing center time, but this method really worked for me this year and I think I will stay with it for a while. One of my teammates actually came up with this idea and I ran with it. It might seem a little overwhelming so stick with me...there are freebies to help at the end! Here's the basics: 3 days of rotations 8 groups 9 stations I broke my kids up into 8 groups (Since I have 18 kids this made for nice little groups - much better than the days when I had 4-5 UGH). Each week we had 9 stations. Each day of rotations the kids went to 3 stations and the teacher table. This is my favorite part of this method - I saw ALL my kids every day that we rotated. I broke up the activities in the stations to that basically the kids had a "fun" station (playdoh mats, matchups/puzzles/games, computers, listening, leap pads, letter of the week craftivity, sight word craftivity, ect) then more of a "work" center (Center activities that I made or found on TPT/letter of the week sound and handwriting worksheets, ect). These stations usually had some sort of product so the kids had some accountability. Then the teacher table, and then another "work" station. So on any given day the kids had 2 center activities to complete, time with me, and more of a fun (but educational!!) station. So here's a typical center rotations schedule 1. CVC word work center 2. Leap pads 3. Scrambled sentences TEACHER 4. Roll and write sight word activity 5. Playdoh mats - building sight words 6. Letter of the week sound/handwriting practice TEACHER 7. Beginning/ending sounds center 8. Computers (starfall, or other software) 9. Read, stamp, and write sight words activity TEACHER If I made "fun" stuff at 2, 5, and 8 it was the perfect pattern of work, fun, work, teacher, work, fun, work, teacher ect... Each student gets a "map" and a center work folder for the week. (You can download a set at the bottom of the post) The folder is just a 12x18 piece of paper folded in half and stapled to make an envelope/pocket with the map stapled on the front. When the students are cleaning up their center, they place their work in the folder and I come around with a marker or stamp. If they were quiet and on task during that station, they get a happy face or fun stamp. If they were not on task or caused trouble they usually get a sad face in that square. Then everyone checks their map to see where to go next and when I say "go" they move to the next station at the same time and get to work. We do a LOT of routines and explanations at the start of the year about HOW to rotate from one station to the next and how we STAY at our station until it is time to rotate. They are usually pretty good about this. At the end of the day we usually had a time for "developmental centers" and I would quickly scan through the center folders and those who had been off task had to use that time to complete their work from the day. For some students it worked better to keep them back from rotating to the fun center with the rest of their group during rotations and make them stay and complete their work right then. It's no fun to watch your friends play on computers while you sit and do the work they already finished. Either way, I ALWAYS check center work. For early finishers during rotations I usually have books at the stations or they can color a picture on the back of one of their sheets in their center folder. At the end of the week when the maps are all full, I send the whole folder home. It might seem like a lot to manage and plan for but I really really LOVED rotating this way this year. Here's why: I saw ALL my kids every day. The small groups made it much easier to manage They were all engaged in a variety of activities while I did small group They rotated often enough that I didn't have long stretches of time where they had to occupy themselves. There was a LOT of learning that went on over the course of a week. Only having 3 rotation days took a lot of the pressure off when we had weird schedules or short weeks. Once we got the procedures down, we could go through a whole days' rotation in just over an hour. They knew they were expected to stay on task, and clean and rotate QUICK. Strict, clear, expectations went a LONG way with this. (Also, it took me a few weeks to actually SIT at my teacher table with my groups while we were learning how to act and rotate). Maybe this is interesting/inspirational to you, maybe you are ready to lock up and send me off to the loony bin. I just wanted to share what worked for me and my kiddos this year :) The first download is a set of rotation maps. The second one is basically a visual of how the rotations go. I originally made that document to help me remember what kids were coming to my table, when, and where they were going, but I really didn't use it at all once I knew what was going on. BUT it does serve as a good visual aid for anyone who does not live inside my head haha. Group Rotation Maps Rotation Layout
Use hands-on and engaging activities with math manipulatives to reinforce one-to-one correspondence skills, number formation, counting and more!
A discussion about play-based literacy learning in the kindergarten classroom. What that looks like, what it means and how it works in my classroom.
