Winter Workshop

       Thanks to the efforts of many volunteer parents (and a really great group of kindergartners), a super time was had by all on Tuesday before the Winter Break.  Here are some pictures of students admiring the felt bookmarks they made. The bookmarks were one of several crafts including bird feeders, picture frames, and sachets that the children completed to take home in their giving bag. The workshop was a wonderful culmination of  December's sharing theme of "handmade and homemade"!  A warm thank you to all who helped make it happen.

Corduroy

Chrysanthamum

We've been talking about how "old favorite" books tell the stories that live in your head and your heart.  They are the ones that are so good you want to hear them again and again until you know them so well you can tell them from memory.  Knowing a book by heart introduces emergent readers to bigger words and longer texts- it's an important step in learning to read!

The Carrot Seed

We're getting ready for winter!

When we returned to school after Thanksgiving the entire class said they were excited for winter weather!  Jan Brett's The Mitten was just the book to get us thinking about fun in the snow and kick off the new Readers Workshop unit on "old favorites".  Here's a look at the class retelling the story using their paper mitten and animals.

Back in time

Another popular independent choice after literacy work this week has been to explore the props in our "old fashioned" dramatic play area.  With a little cardboard and paint we created a play area that looks much like the hearth in the Donald Hall's The Ox-Cart Man. The children can feel sheep's wool, shingles, a wooden bowl, bread loaf pans, a hand knit shawl and mittens - all items that were mentioned in the book!

Literacy Routines

       Each morning, after the children finish their two "have to's" they make choices according to the literacy choice chart.  Take a look at these two pictures of independent work with magnet letters.  In the first picture three kiddos are proudly displaying the alphabet and in the second two children have discovered the word "and" in both of their names!

Partner Reading!

Today was an important day in Readers Workshop.  We celebrated the progress we've made in "sounding like a teacher" when we read books using words and pictures.

200 years ago things were very different than they are today...

     Our current them of "Long Ago and Today" is sparking lots of great discussion.  We began thinking about how times have changed with the help of Virginia Lee Burton's classic, The Little House which depicts changes in transportation, communication, and life in the countryside through the perspective of a little house that remains the same as the world changes around her.  This led us to Donald Hall's The Ox-Cart Man which gave the children a closer view of how all the members of a family worked year round to make or grow almost all of what they needed.  Some members of the class thought they'd like to have lived the way the Ox-Cart Man's family did about 200 years ago while others thought, no- they liked things just the way they are now!  Despite the varying opinions, the whole class has enjoyed making candles, trying out some stitching samplers, playing with old fashioned props, and making butter.  Take a look!