Five for Friday November 7

I am linking up with Doodle Bugs Teaching for Five for Friday. Thank you for hosting, Kacey!

I put together all of my turkey posts so they are all in one place in case you find yourself in need of a turkey idea! Never fear... 

We just made these turkey stories for the hall.  

I love doing this with my class.  The activity started out to be a "How to Make a Thanksgiving Dinner" children's recipe book when I first did this. I have changed it a little bit over the years. I start by asking the children what they are thankful for, after we have our morning lesson on being thankful. Then, I ask them what they do on Thanksgiving. Here are some questions I may ask: Do you stay at home or go somewhere? Who comes over or is at dinner with you? What do you have to eat? Who gets the turkey? Where do they get the turkey? How do they cook it? How long? How do you know when it is done? Do you do anything else special on Thanksgiving?

The turkeys go over their lockers in the hall.  I also put the stories in a Special Thanksgiving Dinner book that I send home with each child before Thanksgiving break, with their special turkey and story stapled on top. I include a note to parents explaining that I wrote down exactly what each child told me, and even read it back to each one to be sure it was what he/she wanted to say.

My friend, Leslie, who teaches across the hall made these precious heart turkeys!  I loved them and wanted to share. She had the hearts cut out, and the kids put them together. They wrote what they were thankful for on the hearts.  

You know how some people have a "Moment of Zen?"  Well, this is my "Moment of Mr. Greg," in honor of Greg Smedley.  There was absolutely no Zen in the moment, because the excitement was everywhere. I can't believe this picture wasn't a blur of movement. We were working on Mm today, so it was mustache day!

  

I took each child's picture, and they had to write, "I have a mustache." on their paper.  "I have a" are sight words, so that's great- and we practiced starting with a capital, leaving spaces between words, and then hearing the sounds in "mustache."  

They're wearing their mustaches like it's their job! 

The kids kept looking like other people to me... for example... Is he NOT Ron Swanson, from Parks and Recreation?  He even has that look in his eyes. Oh my.  

The children stuck their mustaches on their papers to get them home. They wore them for their work in the morning, and then snack came at a perfect time, so they took them off. 

I did get some mustaches from the Dollar Store, and they were so cheap, they didn't even come off the adhesive paper.  I found some at Walmart that were cheap, but not THAT cheap, and they worked great.  

Greg has these great Sentence Strip  Sight Words at his TPT store. 

And, of course, he has a set of sight words with his famous mustache in the packet that I LOVE.  These are perfect for a Write the Room, Mustache Style!



We also had lovely lips for Ll day, by the way.   Part of these fun things are just for me, I'm pretty sure.  These sweeties just make me SMILE.  Some of my little guys were out of the room for this picture.

My students sign in each day when they come into the room. We start with first names, and then as the year progresses, I have them write their first and last name.  It's fun to see the progression throughout the year as these names improve.  Sometimes, I like to change it up a little when they least expect it- and have them sign in with a sight word. Today was "like" day!  They love something a little different.  Sometimes I have them sign in with "O12345."  You just never know!  

(Spoiler alert... it was all going along without a hitch, and then when this one started to write... his "like" might have come out looking like "Jacob."  Oh well...   I took the picture at a good time. because you'd never know if I didn't open my mouth  keep writing too much, and spoil the illusion.

I just love it when my past students come back to read to my class.  This little sweetheart is in 5th grade, and has come back every year, a few times a year, to read.  What a special thing to watch your students grow.  She starts asking when she can come in September, and we keep looking forward to it until the day is here!  I take pictures for her each year. 

Thank you so much for stopping by!  Have a wonderful weekend!

Writing about Books!

I'm linking up with Mrs. Jump's Class for Book Talk Tuesday. Thank you for hosting, Deanna! I always love seeing great book ideas.

And here are some of my FAVORITE book ideas. I use them all the time, and just finished putting together my second big packet! My Writing about Books packet has 170 writing prompts for 102 different books.

 

Here are pictures of the books that I have included.

I keep a copy of the prompt in the corresponding book, so I always have the activity right on hand with that book.  That saves so much time because I'm not trying to look for something.  

 

These books are featured in my Author Studies Writing Prompt Packet.  

This packet features 8 authors: Eric Carle, Donald Crews, Kevin Henkes, Laura Numeroff, Amy Krouse Rosenthal, David Shannon,  Mo Willems, and Karma Wilson, 160 writing prompts, and 100 books!  I listed each author packet separately, and then the big packet all together. Here are the links to the individual authors:

                                          

 

The prompts are easy for the children to see and understand- not too busy, just simple and ready to go!  I like simple and easy to read. 

These authors are also all featured on my Author Prezi, which I updated. 

I LOVE author studies. (Can you tell?!) I love when the children  know so much about authors, and talk about authors like they are their friends. The books that these particular authors and illustrators have created are just so valuable for teaching so many writing skills- from summarizing, inferring, predicting, retelling with beginning/middle/end, characters, setting, plot, and making connections to noticing text features, conventions in writing, detailed illustrations, and just plain learning to LOVE books. 

Each packet of writing prompts has 14 prompts that you can use with any book, and then prompts that are specific to the books by the author.  Several of the books have multiple prompts that you can choose from.  Some are front and back.  Can you tell I love using these?

I have the packets printed out for each author, and that I can choose the ones I want to use, as well as the copy I keep in the book. 

 

I always use these for teaching and practicing using conventions in writing.  It gives the students a purpose for organizing their thoughts, writing a complete sentence, remembering what they want to say, beginning with a capital letter, leaving spaces between words, and ending the sentence with a period.  They don't get to focus on all of these things  as they write books, because they are trying to remember so many other things.  Sometimes we need to have a certain focused writing prompt to practice these things.

I have used these forever. They also make fabulous lessons to leave for a substitute or if you are a substitute and want to take a lesson or two with you in case you have extra, unplanned time- just make copies of a lesson, stick it in the book that it goes with, and you are all set.

Here are some samples from my class this year to show you- and this is only the beginning of the year! These would work well for K-2, because older students can work more on upper level skills and thinking when they write, and add more to their answers.

My favorite shirt is my jewel shirt.

 

Me in my party "jress" Sofia

 I love how she also wrote, "I do my best" because that's what I am always saying to do...  She heard the sounds and wrote it all by herself! 

My dad built a teeter totter.

 Apparently, Payton is a website! 

 

 He loves his Pokemon...

 

 For this activity, I had the kids paint watercolors with a cotton swab to make the feather marks. Then, they labeled their birds when it dried.

 Nike was a very soft cat. He had 5 mice.

 When my dog bites me it makes me mad. 

 I LOVE the bouncing marks!

Thank you for stopping by!  

The Disturbing Transformation of Kindergarten by Wendy Lecker

I had to share this article, The Disturbing Transformation of Kindergarten by Wendy Lecker,
because I love it so much. 

It is true. I think it should be read by every single person in charge of 
Curriculum and Instruction in school districts, and then by politicians who are somehow deciding 
what is best for our kindergarten students. We have somehow, over time, forgotten about the 
development of actual children, and replaced it with the development of programs to teach skills. 
I read through the article again to find some of my favorite quotes, and could practically just cut and
paste the entire article in one big quotation mark.  I will try to control myself...  

"One of the most distressing characteristics of education reformers is that they are hyper-focused on how students perform, but they ignore how students learn... There was a marked decline in exposure to social studies, science, music, art and physical education and an increased emphasis on reading instruction. Teachers reported spending as much time on reading as all other subjects combined. "

Teachers see this all the time in the classroom.  There just is not time to expose children to experiences that expand their world, to take those moments to appreciate nature, explore science, social studies, and the arts. We all try to "fit it in" with books about science or a project here and there. We are becoming more and more of a programmed, scripted classroom with the focus on how our children perform certain ELA and math skills. It doesn't matter that children develop at different rates, especially from ages four to six. Somehow, today, if your students don't perform well, it isn't because they are not developmentally ready and need the gift of time, it's because you are not an effective teacher. 

 With that pressure on teachers, the priority becomes the drilling of skills, ready or not, in spite of what we know is most appropriate for children. How sad that we close our doors to let children be children, and play and explore and learn, like somehow it's not right- when in reality it is so right. 

"If we teach reading, writing, subtraction and addition before children are ready, they might memorize these skills, but will they will not learn or understand them. And it will not help their achievement later on. Child development experts understand that children must learn what their brains are ready to absorb. Kindergarten is supposed to set the stage for learning academic content when they are older."

This is one of my favorite quotes, because I see it. My sweet children try SO hard for me to do what they think I want them to do, but I can just see the understanding of the concept is not there yet.  Of course there are the students who are ready and quickly get what's being taught.  They deserve to be taught and challenged at their level as well.  Unfortunately, when so many children do not perform up to "expectations," a teacher's time is spent trying and trying and trying to make those children master skills they are not developmentally ready to master, instead of being able to challenge students ready to do more.   

"Two major studies confirmed the value of play vs. teaching reading skills to young children. Both compared children who learned to read at 5 with those who learned at 7 and spent their early years in play-based activities. Those who read at 5 had no advantage. Those who learned to read later had better comprehension by age 11, because their early play experiences improved their language development."

WOW.  Why aren't these studies valued? Good teachers know this is true. My fear is for new teachers who are being taught to teach skills, often developmentally inappropriate, with direct instruction, from a scripted manual.  I see the frustration of young teachers who try and try and try to get their students to "get it,"  without noticing the child on the other end of the lesson, who needs something different.  I worry that  songs, games, free exploration, and play have become "bad words" in the kindergarten environment.  I wish people who were deciding what was important to teach would actually spend some time learning from real children and seeing what really works.   

"It may satisfy politicians to see children perform inappropriately difficult tasks like trained circus animals. However, if we want our youngest to actually learn, we will demand the return of developmentally appropriate kindergarten."

Amen, Wendy Lecker, Amen!  Thank you for this article.