Friday, August 26, 2016

Workshops and Woods Play

Hello family and friends!

We have had a great second week of school! The kids are learning our routine and schedule quickly. We also added music to our schedule this week. Ms. Natalie will come to our classroom every other Friday and work on new music skills. It's a fun part of our week!

One of the main things I want to tell you about this week is our workshops. We have three main workshops that we rotate throughout the week: math, reading, and writing. The beauty of workshops is that its a time for Michelle and I to walk around the room and meet with each child individually. As we do this, we are assessing their skills in each of these areas. We take notes, talk with the children, and help them work through anything they may need help with. This time gives us a clear picture of what we need to provide for each child and the best way to challenge them to help them improve in these skill sets.

Math workshop consists mainly of math games that cover a range of different skills. As we begin to learn the skills each child already knows, we are very strategic about which games they choose. Each child starts at a station and moves their way around the room, either when they've completed their game or when they feel that they are ready to move on to something new. Writing workshop works on our writing and fine motor skills. We talk about our word wall, letters, words, and encourage inventive spelling (the child spelling words in their own way). Many children do not want to start writing workshop with letters and words. That is perfectly fine. They may choose to draw or color during this time instead. After they are done with their work, Michelle and I meet with each one and talk about their work. We write on a post-it what they have created. We feel that the post-it does not take away from their work by us marking on their papers. During reading workshop, we spend time exploring books. At the beginning of the year, we talk about the proper care of our books and how to handle them. We explore the different parts of a books and their importance. We also get to know each child's favorite books and their reading interests. As with all the workshops, this is also a time for us to assess each child and we take the time to meet their needs in an individualized way while challenging them as the year progresses.

Another thing we did this week was visit the woods for the first time...it was awesome! The kids seemed to really love it. We walked across bridges, swung from vines, stomped through the mud, climbed trees, and played in the woods fort. We were all sweaty and dirty, but we were loving it! As we walked through the woods, we talked about nature. We discovered different types of plants and talked about the water. We thought about what we could see, hear, and smell. While this is a great alternative to our playground time, it is so much more. The kids are exploring while they play. They are asking questions and learning to work together. They're learning to help one another and develop social skills. We also learning to take risks and learning our personal limits. As we played, we gathered nature to bring into our classroom. Once we got back to the room, many of the kids chose to paint their nature. We painted with different pieces of nature, such as sticks and leaves. As we painted, we talked about our experience. We asked questions about our pieces of nature and did some research. We also talked about what we liked and didn't like about the woods. All of these conversations and artwork are hanging up in the hallway. Make sure you check it out!

Many of you may have noticed our new chandelier hanging above our art table. This is our birthday wreath that will be a part of our birthday celebrations each month. Each child chose a piece of ribbon and we glued a picture of them with their birthday date on the bottom of the ribbon. When we celebrate birthdays each month, the children with a birthday that month will take their ribbon off the wreath and decorate it then add it back. This birthday ritual will be a time for us to celebrate each child individually while demonstrating that together we all make up our classroom family.

Throughout the rest of the school year, we will be doing what I like to call "explorations". I like to avoid the word "theme" because, in my mind, I view a theme as something you do for a week and never touch it again. The beauty of an exploration is that it has no time frame. Some explorations may last 3 days, some may last a month or longer. The time we spend on each exploration will depend on the kids and how interested they are in what we are learning about. Another fun thing about explorations is that several ideas may overlap and we sometimes go back and make references to previous explorations. These explorations are chosen by the kids. Next week we will ask each child something they would like to learn about, something they were interested in. Throughout the year we will make sure we cover every idea or question that they have. As we're doing these explorations, we are including subject matters such as math, science, social studies, reading, writing, and geography. It's amazing to watch how many standards we cover while having fun and learning something interesting all at the same time! I'll go more in depth in later posts, but wanted to let you know how the rest of our days will play out.

Thanks for helping us make it a great week! I'm already looking forward to week 3!

Love,

Ms. Rachael



Approaches to Learning
  • Show creativity and imagination using materials in representational play.
  • Demonstrate increasing ability to identify and take appropriate risks in order to learn and demonstrate new skills.
  • Show curiosity in an increasing variety of activities.
  • Demonstrate eagerness and interest as a learners by questions and adding ideas.
  • Try to solve problems encountered in play.
Social and Emotional
  • Demonstrate self direction by making choices among peers, activities and materials.
  • Stand up for rights much of the time.
  • Respond respectfully to positive and negative feedback from adults most of the time.
  • Follow classroom rules and procedures with reminders.
Language and Literacy
  • Make relevant comments or appropriate responses to story events or characters.
  • Respond to elements of colorful language in stories and poetry.
  • Retell one or two events from a story read aloud.
  • Begin to understand the relationship between oral language and written language.
  • Represent familiar people and experiences through art and language.
Mathematics
  • Investigate solutions to simple problems.
  • Locate patterns in the environment.
  • Begin to show awareness of numbers in the environment.
  • Compare sets of no more than then objects using the terms "more than" or "same as"
  • Represent simple joining and separating situations through 4



Our first class photo!...


A day in the life of a super hero...



Working on our birthday wreath...




Writing workshop is serious (fun) work!...



 Math workshop games...





Into the woods we go!...



















Exploring nature through art...




 
 
 
Exploring books during reading workshop...






Enjoying our music class with Ms. Natalie...


 

Friday, August 19, 2016

Welcome!

Hello family and friends!

Welcome to our classroom blog! This will be a place where you can read about our weekly happenings and see pictures of what we've been up to at school. I hope you will be encouraged by what you read each week as you watch us learn and grow.

This first week has been wonderful as we have welcomed both old and new CJDS friends into our classroom family. I have been amazed at how quickly everyone is already adjusting to our new routine. Everyone seems to be getting along well and we've already seen some new friendships starting to blossom. For this first week, we really wanted the kids to take ownership of their classroom. We want them to feel that this classroom is their area to learn and explore. We want it to be a place where they feel comfortable and welcomed.  We've been working a lot on getting used to our routine and schedule. We make a special effort to keep our schedule flexible. This means that we cater to the needs of each child. If your child is hungry and it's not snack time, they can still eat. If it's rest time and they don't want to nap, we allow them to work on activities while others rest. We want our classroom to be driven by the children and their individual needs. You'll also notice that our schedule may seem to include a lot of overlapping. For example, our schedule may read "centers/workshops/small groups" instead of separating them. This flexibility allows us to let the children work at their own pace and when they feel most comfortable. We believe that children learn through play so we never want to take them away from a meaningful play experience!

To start off our week, we spent time getting to know one another, building a foundation of how our daily routines will run, and exploring different materials in our classroom. We have slowly introduced the students to one or two new routines each day. One of the first things we introduced was "Morning Meeting". This could very easily be my favorite part of the day! This is a time where we all sit down as a class to greet one another, share news/stories, read our daily morning message, sing songs, and read together. This is a great way to transition from home to school, as well as welcome the kids and set the tone for the rest of our day. It develops a sense of community that creates trust, confidence, and inclusion.

We have also spent a large part of the week exploring centers. Each day we would go to a different center as a class. We spent this time talking about what could be done in that center, what we were learning through our play, as well as appropriate ways to use the materials in the center. This is a guided discovery where we introduce and model the work that can be done and then allow the kids to explore. After exploring a center together, we let the kids branch out and explore the room on their own. There are countless ways to experience math, language, science, and socialization during center time. For example, some children sat down with counting bears and started to make patterns. They began counting and comparing the size of the bears. As they did this, they grouped them into like categories. They were working through the process together. In a matter of minutes, we were able to informally assess math and science concepts, their socialization with one another, as well as their verbal language. This is just one great example of learning that takes place through play!

We also spent time this week making our class sign and our new sign in system. Our class name is "Tzemach" which means "plant". We talked about the meaning and spelling of our class name and then let the kids decorate some wooden letters to spell it out. We also started making a sign in system. We wanted to give the kids a way to sign themselves in but we also wanted them to be involved in the planning process. We decided to make small popsicle stick people that they can move into a "here" pocket. The kids looked in mirrors as they drew their faces and bodies. Next week, we will finish this by allowing the kids to decorate their own "here" pocket. Once it's completed, the children will have their own handmade popsicle person to move into their very own "here" pocket. We will hang these in the hallway so that the kids can make themselves present as they enter into the classroom.

Next week, we will be adding some workshop times into our classroom schedule. Throughout the week we will be doing workshops on math, reading, and writing. These workshop times will involve concepts such as math games, introductions to books and other forms of literacy, and introductions to writing/drawing journals. You'll hear much more about this in later blog posts but I did want to give you some insight into what we will be focusing on throughout the rest of the year. I feel confident that we will be in full swing in no time!

Each week in my post, I will be listing different standards we met throughout the week. These will be just a handful of the many standards we cover each week. It's amazing how much we learn through exploration and play! I think you'll be encouraged to see so many standards that are met in just one week. I will use the same language listed on the standards so you have a clear explanation of what was done. If you ever have any questions about them, please just let me know. The standards will fall into one of four categories: 1) Approaches to Learning 2) Social & Emotional 3) Language and Literacy 4) Mathematics. You'll see some of this week's standards listed below.

I'm also flooding you with pictures this week! I know the first week can be difficult for parents as they know their little ones are facing a new environment with new teachers. I hope these pictures capture how much fun we've been having this week!

We are looking forward to a wonderful school year! I'm excited to see just how much your sweet ones learn and grow in the next 9 months! As always, feel free to call, write, or stop by with any questions or concerns you may have. I hope everyone is ready for week 2 and enjoys their weekend!

Love,

Ms. Rachael


Approaches to Learning:
  • Show curiosity in an increasing variety of activities, tasks, and learning centers.
  • Demonstrate growing initiative in selecting and carrying out activities.
  • Show ability to focus attention for increasing variety of chosen task and activities for short periods of time (10-20 minutes).
Social & Emotional:
  • Describe characteristics of self and others.
  • Use classroom materials responsibly, most of the time.
  • Develop friendship with one or two preferred children.
Language and Literacy:
  • Make relevant comments or appropriate responses to story events or characters.
  • Participate in choral speaking of poems, songs, and stories with repeated patterns.
  • Creates a picture and labels it orally.
Mathematics:
  • Use emergent mathematical knowledge as a problem-solving tool.
  • Classify objects in their environment by color, shape, size or function.
  • Begin to show an awareness of numbers in the environment.

It's our first day of Pre-K4!...














Center explorations...










Decorating our class name...




Enjoying lunch with new friends...



Drawing self portraits for our "here" pockets...








 We love playing outside!...