​In light of an impending half-day due to snow, Kindergarten read "The Snow Globe Family". We asked students to imagine they were stuck in a snow globe. To support our science curriculum (the children are learning the 5-senses), students used their writing to describe what they saw, felt, smelled, heard, and tasted while inside their snow globe. We challenged students to use descriptive words to make the reader feel like they were in the snow globe too.

This week, Kindergarten students wrapped up their latest writing unit which dealt with the creation of "How To" books.  Students took the time to illustrate and write step-by-step details on a task they already know how to complete and therefore would be able to teach others!  The topics ranged from how to do a crossover in basketball to how to draw a flower to how to open up a box!  One thing is certain, Kindergarten students know "how to" grow as writers and illustrators and are making great strides as we head into our next unit on Persuasive Writing!

Kindergarteners play at recess, they play at exploration and they play at home.  What about playing with letters?  This week, the students learned how to play with letters as both readers and writers.  They imagined the noises that different animals and vehicles might make.  They listened to their invented noises carefully, trying to hear all the sounds in a noise and write it down so that others can read the writing and make the noise the way the writer imagined.  Our classrooms became the forest, the jungle, the zoo with animals sounds and the children recorded the sounds they heard...grrrrrrooowwwwllll, clip-clop, ribit, woof, crash.  They played with adding more vowels to elongate the sound. They paid attention to letter blends such as gr and cl which led into the next teaching point.  The children then applied their new knowledge of how letters worked together to make their reading and writing come to life.