I Survived the 100th Day of Kindergarten (22 Times)

I got the idea for this 100th day sweatshirt from my oldest son's kindergarten teacher, Betsie L.,  back in 1991!
I've worn it each 100th day of kindergarten for the past 22 years.

I wasn't going to write about celebrating the 100th day of kindergarten.I didn't think I needed to persuade anyone to try to celebrate this milestone in the kindergarten year. I couldn't really think of anything new I could add to the vast repertoire of ideas available to teachers. I've always celebrated the hundredth day of kindergarten so I can't even reminisce about how it used to be!

And then I realized that I'll be missing out on my final celebration of Day 100.  My amazing mother is turning 90 years old on that day.  My husband and I are traveling to Minnesota for a long weekend in order to be with my mom and dad on this special occasion. So...

My lesson plans are written.  

The paper crowns are assembled and ready for coloring.  

The kids' collections of 100 items are hanging in baggies on the bulletin board. 

I've photocopied simple posters and set out markers for adding ten dots in 10 different colors to each of the 10 sections.

A chart is ready for the substitute to record each person's favorite food during the sharing portion of Morning Meeting.  Later, the students will copy the sentence frame and their food choice and illustrate it with one large sample.

And, setting on my desk, there is Miss Bindergarten Celebrates the 100th Day of Kindergarten.

I tried to be like Miss Bindergarten one year, by the way, and, doggone it, I couldn't do it! Cutting out all those hearts, hanging mobiles, purchasing ten different allergy-free snacks... and to think that she accomplishes all that preparation in the wee hours of one morning and manages it all with a REALLY zoo-ey class!

But, missing out on this last 100th day, is giving me a feeling for what it will be like when I'm retired.  As markers in the kindergarten year come by---the first day of school, Parent Night, conference days, Halloween, etc.--I'm sure I will reminisce, share my thoughts and ideas with those who are still making a difference in lives of children, and check out what is new and exciting in education. 

All  around 10 a.m... while snuggled on my couch... in my plush bathrobe... enjoying that second cup of coffee...

Royal Readers: Guided Reading Groups in Kindergarten

This is the short and sweet tale of how one teacher conducts guided reading groups in kindergarten.  

Once upon a time, not so long ago, there were no reading groups in kindergarten.  In 1995, five and six year olds were expected to learn the letters and their sounds, how to rhyme, and how to sit and listen nicely to a story read aloud to them.  That was about it for kindergarten literacy back then!  But with No Child Left Behind in 2000 and Common Core in 2010, the goal in kindergarten became learning to read.

The concept of emergent reader texts comes from the work of a New Zealand researcher, Marie Clay, back in the 1960s.  Characteristics of an emergent reader text are:

• Words that are usually no longer than 3-4 letters
• Every letter is associated with one specific sound in a phonetically regular fashion
• The only words that do not follow a one-one correspondence of sound to letter are either high frequency common words such as  "the, you, play, my, is ," or words that can be figured out by referring to the pictures 

Most emergent reader texts are very short, 8-16 pages in length.  At first, there is usually just one sentence on a page.  Often the texts are highly repetitive which aids in fluency.

This is considered a Level A (early emergent) text.

Kindergarteners read on a wide range of levels.  The above example is of a very simple, early emergent reading level.  At midyear, we have students who read at this level and those who read more complex texts.  So, the only way to meet the needs of all students is to group together those at a similar level and meet with these small groups. In my classroom, we begin meeting with reading groups midyear.  We meet as frequently as time permits.

In my class, I have a plastic golden bejeweled crown that I wear when I work with small groups or individual students.  My students know that when I am wearing the crown, I am not to be disturbed unless it is an emergency (and I am pretty direct in describing to them what constitutes an emergency!)  The first half of the year, they see me wearing the crown every day when I sit at the math center during STEAM and whenever I do individual assessments. So, at midyear, when I tell them that I will now be wearing the crown during our Reading Skills and Reader's Workshop, they understand this is a "Do Not Interrupt" time.  I explain to them that this will be a special time for them as they will become "Royal Readers!'

If you look closely, you will see that each animal is wearing a crown!
The names of the children in each group are written on the back and the groupings are flexible.
Children change groups frequently.

Each year, I purchase card stock crowns and a package of jeweled stickers at a party store or on Amazon.  This year, I found golden crowns.  I reinforce them with a strip of poster board, write their names on them, and staple each to fit.  Students keep them in their book boxes and wear them to their Royal Reading group.  At the end of each guided reading group time, they get to put a jeweled sticker on their crowns.

Crowns are pretty sturdy and last all year with a bit of care.

As for how I design my guided reading lessons, I am a big fan of Jan Richardson and her book, The Next Step in Guided Reading.  I highly recommend this book to every teacher!

For parents who read this blog and would like to know more about the characteristics of the various levels of emergent reading, please click on this link.

                                                    

And the Royal Readers read to their hearts content and live happily ever after !

Teaching Kindergarteners to Recall Events in a Story

I like to draw and creating these posters was a labor of love!  So glad my friend Sarah J. has requested these!

If you give a teacher a Common Core standard, she will wonder, "How can I teach this?"  After she raises the question, she will look online to see what other teachers have done.  And after she looks online, she will find goodbyekindergarten ....and, hopefully, read on!

Our first author study in kindergarten this year was of Mo Willems. Mo is both an author and an illustrator.  I have selected the If You Give A...series by Laura Numeroff and Felicia Bond as our second author study for a couple of reasons.  One of those reasons is that there are two different people who composed the books, one who is the author and the other who is the illustrator.  To help children understand the different roles of the two creators, I have the children use props and a song before reading each book.

The "illustrator" is holding a paint palette but a box of watercolors would work, as well.
The "author" is holding a keyboard but a notebook and pencil would also work.

The song (origin unknown; it might be my own!) is to the tune of The Farmer in the Dell.

For many children,  a few musical dramatizations solidifies the roles of author and illustrator.

In an earlier post, I wrote about using Mo Willems' books to teach about character and setting. You can read that post by clicking here. This post is about teaching the concepts of an event, a series of events, and what is meant by recalling.  By this time of year, kindergarteners have worked on the standard of asking a question about an unfamiliar word so hands should certainly shoot up in the air when you share this vocabulary-laden objective:

Do your students use Talking Mirrors? See my post on Whole Brain Teaching.

It's a fun, effective way to teach new vocabulary using words and gestures.  Students hold up their arms as if holding a mirror with two hands, blow on it to shine it up, then repeat whatever you say and do. So...

• "Talking mirrors, everybody.  An event...is something that happens.Click here to see American Sign Language for "an event."
• "Talking mirrors, everybody.  A series of events is...an event and another event and another event and another."  (Repeat the sign language for "event" while moving your hands from left to right.)
• "Talking mirrors, everybody.  Recalling is...the same as remembering."  (Tap the side of your head as if remembering.)

After mirroring my definitions, the children turn and mirror the definitions with their partners.

If you are familiar with Laura Numeroff books, each one is about a series of events where one thing leads to another.  Many teachers use these books to teach cause and effect.  I have trouble doing this because, to my way of thinking, cause and effect is more of a logical construct.  There is nothing logical about giving a mouse a cookie!  Even if I substitute "child" for "mouse," it's not a sure thing that a child will ask for milk to go with her cookie.  She might prefer juice or water, be lactose-intolerant, or want nothing!  The events are just author Numeroff's creative associations.

Nonetheless, children love hearing these stories and will try very hard to recall the many events in the order they happened.  I have purchased a picture set on TpT for each of the five Laura Numeroff books that I read aloud in class.  After reading a book, I distribute the pictures to the students.  As you can see from the picture below, I have cut a large shape reminiscent of a key detail in each story (eg: a cookie, a pancake, a muffin, etc.) and displayed it beside each book's poster.

The class works together to recall the events in the order they happen.  Although we glue the pictures to the cut-out shape, I just cut them apart each year and reuse them.

I read If You Give a Pig a Pancake last because I purchased a picture set that is smaller and meant to be completed by individual students.  At this midpoint in the year, some students are able to accomplish the recalling and sequencing of events independently but most will need what the standard says, ie; prompting and support.

Now that my kindergarteners have some understanding of each of the story elements (character, setting, and major events) we will move on to another author study in which we discuss all three elements plus problem and solution.  I hope you will want to read my next post on how I use the work of the great Ezra Jack Keats, author and illustrator of The Snowy Day, and many other  highly-acclaimed picture books.

A Kindergarten Birthday Party for Martin Luther King!

As readers of this blog know, I have been a teacher for a long time.  A quick recap:  I started as a learning disabilities teacher in 1977 and taught until the birth of our first child in 1985.  I was a private educational tutor until 1995 when I began my 23 year career as a kindergarten teacher.  So, that's a lot of years--and a lot of files!  When I sat down to look through my file on MLK, I was curious to find my earliest lesson on this great American.

Here is what I found:

                         Here is a copy of Sing About Martin that you can actually SEE!

This song was copied from the January 1984 Instructor magazine (now Scholastic.)  It's author, the late "Miss Jackie" Weissman, wrote a lot of really great songs for early childhood.  You can listen to recordings of Sing About Martin on YouTube.  I know you will love it!  Just think: in 1984, I taught my students this song and I'm still teaching it to students 34 years later...

During those 10 years while I was home with our own kids and tutoring, I came up with the idea of having a birthday party to celebrate MLK.  We got together with another family with young children and tried it out.  I also volunteered to "throw a party" for my daughter's first grade class.  So, when I returned to the classroom in 1995, I was eager to start partying with my kindergarteners!  The idea of birthday parties for American heroes was well-received by parents and administrators.  It even attracted local media attention.  In 2007, a colleague and I offered a "Birthday Parties for American Heroes" workshop at the Illinois Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development's annual kindergarten conference. 

Introducing Martin Luther King

On the first day of school in January, I put a photo of MLK on our classroom calendar.  I also set out invitations to the birthday party at each child's place.  Their interest and enthusiasm are sparked right away!  Some years, I have invited parents to the birthday party, as well.

I usually devote a week of shared reading, read-alouds and writing lessons to MLK.  Our shared reading is of the Sing About Martin song. This year, I plan to include a second shared reading activity which I found on Pinterest.

Thanks to growinginprek.com

I also read portions of a couple of biographies of MLK.  Kindergarteners really enjoy stories of his childhood and the first of these books is especially good at portraying young MLK.  I hope you can find it somewhere because it is out of print. The second biography presents Dr. King's accomplishments sensitively. The Scholastic weekly magazine, Let's Find Out, has improved its presentation of information in recent years.  I include it as a read aloud, too.

After we read a bit each day, we recall the facts we learned on a class chart like the one below.  Then, each student refers to the chart to compose a sentence and draw a related picture (or two or three.) 

There is a second chart where we recall facts about Big MLK, as well.

I like kindergarteners to write one sentence per page and staple the pages together into a booklet.  Sometimes I give them the opportunity to do some directed drawing for the cover page.  This year, due to time constraints, I have drawn the book cover and the students will have a chance to color it.

                                                   If you'd like a copy of this, click here.

The Birthday Party

There are so many possibilities for how to create and conduct the actual birthday party.  Depending on a particular group of students, parental support, and whatever else is happening in life, I have "gone all out" and kept it simple.  It's all good!  Here are ALL of my ideas so you can pick and choose.  However, if you must choose just ONE, I really hope you choose to play my game, "Going on a Long March."

• Brainstorm features of a birthday party with the kids and tell them we will try to include several of them at Dr. King's party and others at parties for Abraham Lincoln and George Washington.

• Make red, white, and blue paper chains and leave them up as decorations through the parties in February for the presidents.

• Make a handprint banner in all the beautiful shades of brown.  Read The Colors of Us by Karen Katz.
  
• Make T-shirts for the kids/with the kids:  Have everyone send in a short sleeved white undershirt or a couple of dollars to pay for ones you buy in packages of 3 at Target.  Print my design on iron-on transfer paper and make the t-shirts as gifts for the kids to wear at the party and afterwards.  They can add MLK's initials and the year using fabric markers.  Or, if you have a parent helper, have him/her use sponges and fabric paint with the kids as I did on this sample shirt.

For a copy of the iron-on transfer, click here.

• 
  Make party hats.  This is the hat we will be making this year.
  

  

  You can purchase this headband from TpT:
  thanks to K is for Kinderrific!

• Vote on whether to have cupcakes or ice cream as the birthday treat.
  

This year, we voted for ice cream !

• Count the candles on MLK's birthday cake or dish of ice cream.  Use red candles for the tens and blue for the ones.  Dr. King was born on January 15, 1929.  So, for example, this year he would be 89: that's 8 red candles and 9 blue ones.

• Share your dreams for a better world.  Before the party, have the children draw, write, and/or tell their dreams for a better world.  At the party, read everyone's dream aloud and put all of the dreams in a gift bag or box.

• Best of all, play "Going on a Long March."  It is my version of "Going on a Bear Hunt." Everyone stands in a circle and marches in place for a few beats.  Then you read a line and everyone repeats that line while marching.  When you read, "Oh, no," everyone stops marching.  When you read, "Two different neighborhoods" (or schools, drinking fountains, beaches) everyone follows your lead to point in one direction, then the other.  When you read, "No fair!"  everyone follows your example and gestures "No!" with a wagging pointer finger. At the end, repeat "Listen to his dream" three times, using a progressively softer voice to help everyone calm down.  And then discuss what you have just re-enacted.  It's powerful fun and powerful teaching... and you can get a copy of it here!