Letter Recognition VS. FDK

Our kindergarten wing (a total of 4 teachers plus 3 ECEs) attended a Full-Day Kindergarten Hub this past Friday. A "hub" is a great big meeting where different schools and teachers get together to discuss/collaborate/share ideas, wonderings and successes. It's a time for teachers to be reflective, to discuss what is being done in the classrooms in terms of program implementation and possible next steps. It's a time to learn more about the program and then bring it back to the classroom to implement. It's a wonderful opportunity for teachers and admin to get together to learn from each other.

One of the questions that came up at our "hub" was, "In a play-based environment where students are directing their own learning ... how do we find the time and place to teach letter recognition?" The answer to this was (in hindsight) pretty easy: Do it through PLAY of course.

A friend and fellow teacher colleague of mine (Mlle. Farrell ... you can visit her wikispace by clicking here) created this handout to describe just what this looks like:

Play Handout

One of the concerns that teachers had (or maybe it was just me) was ... "How on Earth am I going to teach that the letter A is pronounced AH instead of EH during play centres?" And sure enough, the admin staff had an answer. They said that through various play centres and literacy centres, students will first begin to recognize the letters in their name. Naturally, they learn to do it in English first but the French language can be intertwined. By directly teaching the alphabet by singing songs, chanting it and manipulating the letters and then reinforcing letter recognition at various centres, students WILL learn it.

I then asked, "What if no one goes to the literacy station when the grocery store dramatic play centre is open?" And again ... they  had an answer. They reminded me that kids are drawn to adults ... If an adult is sitting at the literacy centre, students WILL go there. You don't have to force them, but if you're present, connected and genuinely interested in the centre then students will be right there with you.

Here are some pictures of how I've manipulated 'literacy' into play. Because in fact ... the two do not have to be separate entities.

The writing's on the .... window?! These students are using 'special' markers.

Learning their friends' names ... Always a popular centre!

Our newest (and temporary) addition to the room. A mini-Smartboard. Students don't always need a 'game or activity' ... they're happy (and fully engaged) when they're just drawing on a blank Notebook file.

I wrote out their names ... and they glued little bits of coloured paper to the letters.

Using the IPAD and the DoodleBuddy app, students took their picture and then wrote their name.

 

 

Students wrote 'sight words' in shaving cream. I had the IPAD and wrote out a word, flashed it to them and turned it into a race ...

With laminated letters and links ... students wrote their names and the names of their friends.

 

 

So, I guess what I learned from the "hub" this time around was ... keep doing what I'm doing. I learned much more ... but in regards to 'letter recognition vs. play' ... we're doing just fine. We have inquiries, we have play-time, we have balance between mini-circles and whole-group circles, we have body breaks, we have read-alouds, we have songs and dances ... the bottom line is this: these little sponges soak it alllllllll in.

 

Way to go, kinders!





 

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Apples and Worms

Where do I start?!

Okay, honestly … where do I even begin? There has been SO much happening in our Kindergarten class these past few weeks that I’m not sure where to start! This blog post will be a mix of things as I go through my Ipad and remember all of our fun happenings!

By the way, times like this make me realize just how invaluable the Ipads are to documentation for assessment purposes. I keep saying, “Oh ya!” and “Oh, wow I forgot about …” as I scroll through the camera roll. As the year goes on, I’m hoping to become more tech-savvy when it comes to apps but for now … the camera is coming in handy!

Yet another inquiry …

APPLES AND WORMS!

During snack time, one of my little guys pulled out a MacIntosh apple that had a little brown spot on it. He held it up and said, “Does a worm live in here?!” I told him that a worm probably didn’t live in his apple (I didn’t want to scare him from ever eating apples again!), but questioned him about it!

Next week, we’re going to focus on apples a little bit more. Some of our centres will feature apple patterning, apple poems (en français), counting and sorting by colour and of course – eating! Our school is fortunate enough to have a fully functioning kitchen, so I’m hoping (with the support of administration, of course) to give the children a true-making-learning-hands-on-and-as-real-as-can-be-experience by baking some apple crisp! If I peel the apples and give the students some plastic knives to dice them, it might not be as impossible as it sounds. Plus, they’re going to LOVE eating it!

After the 'worm in the apple' conversation, I decided to purchase some very REAL looking worms and soil for our sensory bin. The kiddies had a blast putting soil in their pails and digging for worms. The custodian on the other hand … not so much. Heehee.

TWO BOYS PLAYING IN THE DIRT ... ALTHOUGH I DON'T LIKE TO LIMIT CETNRES, THIS ONE HAD A MAXIMUM OF THREE STUDENTS ALLOWED AT ONE TIME.

Here are some pictures of some other learning centres in our room: Literacy Centre and Calendar Centre.

 

LITERACY CENTRE - PRACTICING NAMES - AND NOT JUST THEIR OWN!

 

 

CALENDAR CENTRE

 

Let me explain 'the Calendar Centre' ... with the focus OFF of long circle-time, where students are sitting for extended periods of time doing calendar, we decided that having a centre for the weather bear would be a better choice for our students. After dressing “Mr. Ours” for the rain (umbrella and all), they spun a spinner to dress him up for other seasons too. At this centre, we rotate the weather bear and the calendar and have students manipulate the date and the days of the week.

That's all for now! Stay tuned to see how our 'apple inquiry' goes!

TTFN,

 

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Kids LOVE David!

I had a feeling the kids would love David. But I didn't know they would LOOOOVE David even in French. David is bad ... and he's always up to no good.



We read "David va à l'école" at the carpet, sandwiching the French words with English and inferring from the pictures what David was up to. The kids were glued to the story, hanging onto every page. After we read the story, I introduced our 'craftivity'... I prepared (brown) circles for the head and the ears, black circles for the eyes, a black mouth and white triangles for the teeth. I showed students a model and asked for a raise of hands of who would like to make their very own David ... no surprise, everyone raised their hand.


This is what they looked like:

This was my 'model' to show them what the final product looked like ...

 

And this is what you get when you don't direct them to do it the 'right' way ... heehee. So cute.

 

On the second day, we re-read David and talked about the bad things that David did at school (chewed gum, butted in line, painted on his friends, etc ...) and I modelled how to draw a picture of David at school, using think aloud strategies. For example, "Hmm, David is not being very good at school. We read that he was standing on the desk. If I wanted to draw a picture of David at school, I would want to draw him standing on top of a desk." Then I asked them if they were going to draw a picture of themselves at school, would they draw themselves standing on the desk? NOOOO, of course not! I asked them to raise their hands and share what kinds of things they were doing at school. Then I modelled some of their examples. I prepared a worksheet from Mille Merveilles (Click here for link) and asked students to join me at the writing centre to draw self-portraits of themselves at school.

 

 

 

The result: diagnostic assessments on who could print their name, who could recognize letters in their name, who could hold a pencil properly ... and some cute selfies!

 

I had the JKs do the drawing only, while the SKs were asked to trace their name (I wrote them in yellow marker), and cut and glue the letters in their name in the proper order (I wrote out the letters).

 

I have die-cut frames that I'm going to attach their 'selfies' to, and it's going to be a cute display for the open house/BBQ. Oh, and I'll put up the David crafitivities too ... I can't resist.

 

TTFN,

 

 

 

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