Buddies!

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Today, our class met with our fourth grade buddies for the very first time! After all the children were paired up and introduced, they each found a cozy place to sit and read a few good books to one another. Very soon, the gentle hum of students reading filled our classroom and the occasional eruption of laughter was like icing on the cake.

Our class will meet with our buddies many times throughout the year. In the past, we have used this time to play outside together, work on special projects, and sit with one another during all school morning meetings. The students, both young and old, look forward to this special time and are always eagerly waiting for the next time they will get to see their buddies!

Kate Messner visits WT

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On Monday, all of the North Hills Campus traveled to the city campus to hear Kate Messner speak about her journey as a writer. She talked to the students about how different experiences in her life have inspired her to write some of her most beloved books. The idea for Seamonster’s First Day was written when her son saw something large that was floating in the lake near their home. Her son asked what the object could be, as it appeared to be swimming in the water. This got Kate thinking. What if it were a sea monster? What might a sea monster’s life be like?

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She also discussed how she researches the material for her stories by trying to experience the events for herself first. When she was writing Marty McGuire, she actually kissed a real frog just as Marty does in the story. She explained that, while it may seem strange, this process helps her to fully embody the moment and she is able to then tell a more descriptive story.

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After the presentation was over, we paired up with our city Pre-k buddies to color and assemble our sea monster hats, enjoy a small snack, and hear the story of Seamonster’s First Day. Before we knew it, it was time to get back on the  bus and head back to school. It was an excited and fun-filled day!

O.G. in the classroom

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This past week, we have started implementing some of the Orton-Gillingham approach into our center time. The activities that are presented are unique to each child’s ability level and their familiarity with letters, phonemes or letter sounds, or their ability to blend sounds to make words. We start with a visual component that helps students practice recognizing the letters and what sounds they make. Then, we move on to a kinesthetic activity where students form letters in a mixture of fine and course, colored sand. The students are given a letter sound and they must then verbalize the name of the letter that makes that sound. Then they finish by writing that letter in the sand. The sand provides the students with a multi-sensory experience where they can see, feel, and hear the sound of the letter as it is formed.

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Students who have already mastered the basic sounds of each letter, move on to learning about sounds such as /th/, /ch/, and /sh/ and when they might be used. Learning these three sounds opens up a whole new world when it comes to writing the sounds that they hear in our language. We also work on blending simple to complex words using our blending board. The words that we are blending are often times nonsense words. We chose to make nonsense words because it forces the children to slow down and sound out each letter rather than just reading the word as a whole. This helps those students who tend to look quickly at words, usually only seeing a few letters, and assume it is a similar-looking word. For example, a child may see the word “boy” but read the word as “baby” instead.

Another Orton-Gillingham technique that we use with a few of the students is arm-tapping. This technique gives students a strategy for spelling non-phonetic words such as “the”, “they”, or “was”. The students practice tapping up or down their arm (depending on whether they are right or left handed) as they say the letters that spell the word. The more they practice this skill, while saying the letters out-loud, the more pathways that are created in their brains, making the information more meaningful.

We will continue to modify the activities for each student as they become more comfortable with techniques and the information they are learning.

“Fairies at Night”

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012314_2333Inspired by Caralyn Buehner’s book, “Snowmen at Night,” one of our students created her own version. As she read her story, I began to wonder if this tale might act as a bond between the many fractured tales we currently have occurring in our class play. I decided to bring in my own copy of the original book and read it to the class again. Now we’ll just have to wait and see if the children were as inspired as I was.

Too Many Pumpkins

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Recently, our class started reading a new story entitled, Too Many Pumpkins by Linda White. The story begins with a young woman who does not like pumpkins, based on a childhood memory where she had to eat pumpkins for every meal for two weeks straight. As the woman gets older, she vows never to look at a pumpkin again! Until, she unwillingly finds herself with a whole crop of giant pumpkins in her front yard!

At this point in the story, we decided to pause our reading to ask, “How do you think she will get rid of all the pumpkins?” The students had so many wonderful ideas, we made a journal entry about it! These were their ideas.

Book Buddies

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We met with our reading buddies, again, this past Friday. Before they arrived, our class made cards for each buddy. The children chose to write their own thoughts, such as “I love you”, “you are cool”, and “___ is my friend.” When our fourth grade friends arrived, they were surprised to have such tokens of caring.

When we meet with our buddies, each pair of children usually picks one book at a time to read together. In an effort to provide comfortable space, we let half of the pairs sit in the hall and entryway near the library, while the other half reads within the classroom. The fourth graders are learning about intonation when they read, strategies for comprehension, and how to help a younger child enjoy stories. Our Pre-K students gain from the modeling provided by the “big kids”, opportunities to have one-on-one conversations about stories, and finding a sense of belonging  in the wider world of our school.

Tracks Everywhere!

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While hiking through the woods with Mr. Cooper the other day, the children came across some unknown tracks in the mud. With Mr. Cooper’s help, they deduced that they must have been made by wild turkeys. Returning to the classroom, we made a list of other kinds of tracks we might be able to find on our campus. These discussions prompted at least a week’s worth of group and individual activities.

Using play dough and our collection of animal models, the children explored the variety of tracks that animals can make. Of course, once we started making animal tracks, cars, trucks, blocks, and cooking tools made tracks as well. We also discussed the idea that our plastic models may or may not be entirely accurate when making tracks.

Over in the math area, we examined scale copies of wild animal prints. The children used Unifix cubes to measure six different tracks. They used one-to-one correspondence when counting, non-standard units of measure when finding the length, and numeral recognition as they wrote the length found.

Once they completed the measuring portion of the project, the children practiced motor planning and understanding spacial relationships as they decided how to arrange their footprints so that all of them fit on their display.

Our final project invited the class to practice their skills as an illustrator. We created a book called, “Who was here?”. Each page had a different foot print and text matching the animal track (“A cat was here.”) with lots of white space for their animal portrait. While reading, we practiced using our “reading finger” to point at each word as we read and scanning  from the left to the right. We also used the track images and beginning letter sounds to identify unknown words.

Spider and Pumpkin Books

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The children can practice reading the little books, Spider on the Floor and Pumpkins for Sale, they are bringing home this week by reading them aloud with you.  As you (or your child) reads, please encourage them to point to one word at a time as it is read.  This helps them establish 1 to 1 correspondence, an understanding that the marks on the page represent the individual words that we say as we read.  This is helpful especially as children are just in the beginning stages of reading which include retelling the story through the use of the pictures and through memorization.  Even though they may not be “sounding out” the words on the page, they are learning more about reading and our language as they practice this skill.  Those that can already read many of the sight words in the story should use picture and first letter cues when they reach an unknown word.  When they attempt a word, usually in a questioning voice and looking at you for approval, ask them, “Does it make sense?”  Good readers use many types of cues to help them decipher an unknown word.