End of the Month

Leonardo conceived of many inventions that he never saw come to fruition. One of these was a parachute. As a finale to our month with Leonardo, we made parachutes out of recycled plastic bags, with clothes pin people holding onto them. After attaching the "people" to the "parachutes", the hallway filled with floating bags and squeals of delight.

At the end of the month I also like to spend time with the children reflecting on what they learned. One reflecting activity I often do is have the children sit with me, one on one, and tell me what they remember, as I type what they say. This helps the children realize what they have learned. It helps my understanding of what things were most memorable as well as what information or misinformation they may have acquired during the month. One humorous examples of a misunderstanding about Leonardo was: "He died now. He was born in 1984." When you are 5 years old, 1984 must seem as much like ancient history as 1452.

In their reflecting, I asked the children to surmise if they think they would have liked to meet Leonardo and why. Here are a few of the insightful responses.

I would have liked to have met Leonardo because:

"he could tell me how to make some of the things he invented."

"I would like to see his pictures."

"he was interested in nature."

"because my favorite animal is horses."

And:

"I'm not sure if I would have liked him because I don't know if he was interested in sports."

December Calendar

Here is a list of special events on December's calendar thus far:

Thursday, December 2@ 9:30: Trip to the Museum of Zoology to meet Janet Hinshaw,

Collections Coordinator, to learn more about birds and their flight

Friday, December 3

@ 11:00: Trip to Michigan Theater to see

the Carolina Chocolate Drops

Wednesday, December 15 @ 9:30: Trip to the Yankee Air Museum

Friday, December 17: 1/2 day, school dismissed at 11:30

If you are interested in joining us on any of the December trips, please email me.

Author Study

In December we will be reading books written by Kate DiCamillo. Kate DiCamillo is an award winning author of children's books. Among her many awards is a Newbery Medal for her first novel Because of Winn-Dixie.

DiCamillo has a series of colorfully illustrated stories about Mercy Watson, that we will be reading through out the month. The illustrator, Chris Van Dusen, and DiCamillo have created a the delightful, lovable character in Mercy Watson. Mercy is a pig, who is part of the Watson family. As Mr. Watson often points out, Mercy is a "porcine wonder".

After lunch each day we will be reading another of

DiCamillo's novels, The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane.

Through out the month, as we read DiCamillo's books we will be discussing story structure: the characters, plot, conflicts, and the resolution, of her stories. We will compare the stories and converse about how the stories make us feel and how the illustrations enhance the stories.

Author Study is one of my favorite monthly themes. I hope the children will enjoy learning about Kate DiCamillo and her books as much as I have.

Math

In the past few months we have been exploring a wide array of math concepts including geometry, counting, even/odd numbers, measuring, and patterns.

These concepts are presented using various modes including stories, discussions, manipulative materials, as well as paper and pencil tasks.

It is difficult to give an example of a typical math lesson because the lessons are as varied as the topics.

There is, however, a general itinerary for the math hour.

Usually, we start with some type of movement activity such as counting down exercises, "Touch you toes 10 times, nod your head 9 times...". Next I present the idea(s) for the morning, and then we do some related hands-on activities.

The math hour concludes with the children working on a few pages in our Singapore Math workbooks.

As children complete the work in their books, they can work independently or with friends, exploring various mathematic materials; as examples building with blocks, developing patterns, examining shapes, or weighing objects.

As with all subjects, I try to integrate several subject areas into the lesson. I include reading, writing, and arithmetic together. At least once a week the children practice writing numbers from 1 to 10. I try to find books and poems relating to the topic. For example: when we were learning about shapes we practiced reading the poem Shapes by Shel Silverstein.

We also practice using deductive reasoning. For instance, the children worked in groups weighing objects. First they estimated how many pennies they thought a plastic bear weighed. They tested their hypotheses and then used this information to try and guess how much a smaller bear would weigh.

During math the children have the opportunity to work independently and in small groups. We often talk about how everyone comes to class with different skills and knowing different things. Being part of the class means we work and learn together.

Just a box...

The kindergarten classroom Friday afternoon appeared chaotic and loud. If you had passed by you might have wondered how any learning could occur in all the mayhem.

In actuality, it was a lesson in ingenuity and cooperation. The children were given two long cardboard boxes. They agreed to make them into a long tunnel. Then they had to experiment on ways to keep them from falling

over. Several ideas were tried: pillows on the outside and inside, stools on the outside and inside. After the boxes were connected together and standing, children tried crawling through. Then there was a suggestion to decorate the tunnels. Everyone got very excited by this proposal.

After much amusement, enthusiasm, and creativity, the boxes were put away and the children analyzed the experience. I asked them what they thought worked well and what didn't work. Here are some of their comments:

-It got crowded inside the box.

-It was fun.

-I liked decorating it.

-People wouldn't always move when someone wanted to get through.

-Sometimes it was too loud.

-We never got to try it because we spent all the time decorating it.

-We did get to crawl through.

-We all worked together.

-It was good when we were drawing on the outside but it was crowded when we were inside.

-Sometimes someone coloring on the top would press down and bump the people inside.

-I think it would have been better if we took turns.

-Yeah, I think 1/2 the children should have done it at a time, then it wouldn't be so crowded.

I was impressed with this groups ability to critically look at the experience. They had many very insightful comments.

Reading

Questions about how and when children learn to read were a popular topic during conferences last week. I thought a further description of things we do at school to promote reading might be helpful.

There are countless theories and books on the topic of reading, so obviously I will only provide a glimpse into the subject in this blog entry. Hopefully, it will give a foundation for further discussions about the subject through out the year.

During the day we use a variety of techniques to teach reading:

>Phonetics

>Linguistics Methods

>Whole-word Approach

>Language Experience Approach

>Choral Reading

>Recorded Books

>Paired Reading Method

The reason for using so many techniques and methods in the classroom is that, so far, no system for teaching reading exists that works for everyone. As anyone who has learned English as an adult, can tell you, English is not an easy language to master. For every rule there is an exception. I often talk and laugh with the children about the crazy English language. For example, the other day we looked at the word "knot". Try to use phonics to read this word and no one will know what you are trying to say.

Each child came to school with pre-reading skills:

>having an appreciation for books and reading

>showing a beginning understanding of the concept of print having meaning

>comprehension and responds to stories read aloud

>demonstrates phonological awareness (i.e. hearing initial sounds in words, rhyming words...)

As reading ability progresses children will build on these skill to be able to:

>recognize lower and upper case letters

>decode unfamiliar words

>Use strategies to construct meaning from print

When individual children start to read is the magical piece. Most children start reading between 4 and 7 but just as babies roll over, walk, and talk at different ages, children read in their own time and at their own pace.

Our job as adults is to provide children with an environment rich with words and reading, to encourage their reading. It is important to not have reading become a chore, keep reading interesting, enjoyable and part of everyday.

Self Portaits

We started the day Friday discussing and looking at portraits and self portraits. The children compared two self portraits by Leaondo Da Vinci to figure out in which he was older.

Through out the day, the children each had a turn to paint a self portrait.

The gallery of portraits are hanging in our room. Stop by and see them.

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Leonardo Da Vinci

November's school wide theme is Leonardo Da Vinci.

Since Da Vinci was a true "Renaissance man", our exploration into his life will takes us in many directions including art, science, and engineering. It will also give us the opportunity to revisit our first two themes: The Renaissance and Flight, in more depth.