Sunday, September 23, 2012

Squiggle Writing

During the week, our writing consists of Writing Workshop. We focus on a skill for that particular day, I model how to incorporate it into their writing, and then they have some time to practice in their own journals. We save Friday for a "catch-up" day in case we fall behind. We were on track this week so I thought we'd try something different! I gave each child a squiggle on a piece of paper.


I modeled how to take that squiggle and turn into something. We talked about how you have to be creative and add in lots of details. Usually I stress WRITE first, and then illustrate. For this activity, they were able to draw/illustrate first. It took awhile for some of those ideas to start flowing... but once each child had one, they were on a roll!





These are the few that had the chance to share to the class. We didn't have a chance for everyone to share, but EVERYONE did such an amazing job!! I was completely blown away by how creative they were! And many were able to create a story about their pictures...








Reading Buddies

Miss James, the K4 teacher, asked if our class would be interested in being Reading Buddies with her morning class! The kids were VERY excited about it. We talked about how they are modeling how to be strong readers. We go every Thursday morning and it's so cute to see how much both students look forward to this special morning activity.









 
 


Mrs. Jones

Each month we are lucky enough to have Mrs. Jones, our guidance counselor, come in and do a character building lesson for us. The kids look forward to her visits! She brings her good friend, Oliver, with her.



This month's lesson focused on being a good friend. She read a story to them called Enemy Pie. In this story, the little boy learns how to turn an ememy into a friend! Afterwards, the kids had to decide if certain situations belonged with the Friendship Pie or Enemy Pie.




With the help of Oliver, at the end of each lesson, we sing "Happy Birthday" to those who celebrate birthdays that month! These are our August and September birthdays. We can't wait to celebrate our September birthdays on their Birthday Celebration Day in class too!
 


Edible Maps

This is one of my favorite activities in Social Studies! We've been discussing the different landforms in South Carolina. There are 4 main ones -- the mountains, the plains, the hills, and then the ocean. After learning what the difference is between each geographical feature, we colored in a map showing the location of each feature. Then, the fun began!! We used candy to make an edible map! The Hershey Kisses were the moutains, the chocolate chips were the hills, and Smarties were the plains! We used Twizzlers to create the outline of our state! Yum!! We had a lot of fun!























I think it's pretty safe to say Peyton enjoyed eating his map afterwards! :)