Tzemach Class 2016: Workshops

Hello family and friends!

What a fun week we've had in the Tzemach class! As we've been continuing to enjoy our Mo Willems books, we've been incorporating this study into our reading and writing workshops. I thought I'd take some time to share details about our workshops throughout the week. We do a reading, writing, and math workshop. These are great times for us to work in large group, small groups, and individually. It's also an ideal time for Michelle and I to make our way through the class and get one on one time with the kids. This is where we do a large part of our assessments and adjust our standards based on the skills of each individual.

For this week's reading workshop, we put a focus on the writings of Mo Willems. We continued to discuss many of the concepts mentioned in last week's post, as well as put a strong focus on specific words. In the beginning of the year, many kids tell us they "can't read" and therefore can't do reading workshop. Of course, this isn't true! They are recognizing letters and sounds, they are reading environmental print around them (even something like a stop sign). We also tell them that "picturing walking" is a form a reading. You can use the clues and pictures around the text to figure out what the author is telling you through the story. This concept is used in each of our reading workshops, but this week we encouraged the kids to hunt for words that they have learned throughout the year. Most of the words are on our word wall, but many of them have also been picked up during center play and morning meeting. The kids sat with a partner and pictured walk through a book. They hunted for sight words and then spent time telling the class what their story was all about. Many of them were amazed at how many sight words Mo Willems uses in all of his books! :)

We also did things a little differently in our writing workshop this week. Many of our writing workshops consist of working in our journals. This is time for the kids to write about anything of their choosing. Some chose to only draw, while others chose to write a few words or even all of their thoughts. During this time, we do not tell the kids how to spell words. We encourage inventive writing, where they use previous knowledge of letters and sounds to form words the way they think best. Of course, they always have words around the room to refer to, but this inventive writing helps to develop both their reading and writing skills. This is a time for them to become more comfortable in their writing and gives the opportunity to tell stories through their words and artwork.This week we chose to play some letter BINGO instead. We played some rounds by calling out the actual letter. Other rounds were played by calling out the sound of a letter or a word that starts with the chosen letter. This was a great way for us to get our brains running with sounds and letters and was a great way for us to work with one another to figure out letters together. I am currently working on making BINGO a little more challenging by adding sight words and other familiar text to our games.

During our math workshops, we play games based on different math concepts. Michelle and I make game stations for the kids to work their way through. This is a great time for her and I to provide games based on where each child is individually. As each of child's skills develop throughout the year, we change the games out and add new ones. We want them to be fun but also challenging. Some of these games allow for team work, while others are for individual work. As the kids work through each station, they are working on math concepts specifically catered to them and where they currently are developmentally. As the year progresses, so will our workshops. As the kids master more skills, we will change up our strategies and expectations. This is a great way for us to be able to spend one on one time with the kids. It gives us a clearer idea of what skills they've mastered, what they are still working on, and what direction we need to take them.

We also had another wonderful lesson with Ms. Daizha this week! She chose a science lesson and focused on the concept of sound. She taught the kids all about vibrations. To do so, she put a speaker up to a bowl of rice and we watching them "dance". This was a great way for them to be able to physically see how vibrations work. She also played a guessing game with them where she had them cover their eyes while she made a noise. They were then supposed to guess what object was making the noise. This led to them talking about different types of instruments. They worked in stations to create either a Chinese drum or maracas. After they made their instrument, they met back in a large group and spent time making music together. It was a wonderful lesson and the kids seemed to really enjoy it! We're already looking forward to her next one!

Love,
Ms. Rachael

Approaches to Learning:

Demonstrate increasing ability to identify and take appropriate risks in order to learn and demonstrate new skills.
Demonstrate eagerness and interest as a learner by questioning and adding ideas.
Show increasing ability to maintain interest in self-selected activities and play despite distractions and interruptions.
Demonstrate an increasing ability to organize actions and materials in the learning environment.

Social & Emotional:

Demonstrate self direction by making choices among peers, activities, and materials.
Demonstrate confidence by participating in most classroom activities.
Develop strategies to express strong emotion with adult help.

Language & Literacy:

Retell one or two events from a story read aloud.
Begin to identify significant words from text read aloud.
Begin to ask questions about the causes of events they observe or hear about in books.
Explore books independently.
Seek information by looking at texts, signs, and photographs in the classroom.

Mathematics: