Thursday, December 13, 2018

Paperwhite Bulbs

We've been growing Paperwhite bulbs in the classroom.  These are so much fun to observe! We put water in the bottom of our cups and used toothpicks to keep our bulbs in place.  We've been drawing and writing about our observations.  In kindergarten, we've been working on careful observation.  We noticed that our bulbs were brown, with white roots, and a little bit of green coming out of the top.  We talked about the fact that even though we LOVE the color purple, there is no purple on our bulb.  So, we decided that we wouldn't draw with purple.  Observing and drawing exactly what we see is hard work in kindergarten.


Our Paperwhite bulbs will be coming home today, so kids can observe them over the long break.  I would encourage parents to have kids do some careful observation and draw and/or write about what they see.  I'm sure there will be lots of changes over the next few weeks!


Wednesday, December 5, 2018

A Few Literacy Stations

There is a time every day when we practice some of our literacy skills.  Eventually, when kids are able to work independently, I will run some small Guided Reading groups.

At the beginning of the year, all of our stations involved letters and letter sounds.  This is a fun game where kids say the letters and their sounds to Mrs. Lewis and then get to toss the bean bag in the bin.  Some kids love the tossing part and others choose to just have the bin close by.


One of our newest stations is Little Books.  We are making sentences with sight word stamps. We also have some animals stamps and word cards to copy.  


One of my personal favorite is our Storytelling station.  I love using the felt board in class.  I usually start by reading a story and then we do a retelling with the felt board.  Sometimes, kids just tell the story with the felt pieces, and other times one person reads the book and the other puts the pieces up.


We have several other literacy stations that we use, but I wanted to give you a peek into a few of the activities we are doing to enhance our reading, writing, listening, and speaking.

Monday, November 26, 2018

Art as Morning Work

Every day, as kids walk into classrooms, teachers have "morning work" for kids to do.  It has to be something that kids are able to do independently, so that teachers can take attendance, gather any notes, and talk to the kids about things they are excited to share.  In our classroom, I try to change up the morning work assignment, depending on the day.  One day we might have our alphabet boxes out to work on.  Another day we might have a variety of puzzles to do with a partner or small group.  Last week, we introduced the art stations.  

We rolled out a big long sheet of white paper and added some markers for collaborative drawings.

We used the book Snowmen At Night as inspiration and used oil pastels on blue paper to draw snowy scenes.  We even added glitter for a special touch.


I love collecting drawing books.  This guy was so excited that I had a book showing how to draw cars and trucks.


I try not to do too many coloring books because I think that takes all of the creativity away.  But, this Christmas design coloring book was a fun addition.


My favorite art station is the solar system station.  A few books about space, some black paper, and oil pastels can inspire the kids to draw their own solar systems.


We have our Center time (free play) in the afternoon, most of the boys in our class gravitate toward the stations that involve building or imaginative play.  Most of the girls go toward horses, the doll house, or art.  By setting a theme each day for morning work, it encourages kids to try something they might not realize they enjoy.  There are a few kids who don't enjoy drawing because it's hard for them.  This is an opportunity to take the marker and make big marks on the paper or try loopdie loops.  This is the time to play with art.  On days when we do building stations, it encourages the kids who usually do art projects during free play to try out Marble Works or building a tower with blocks.  I love providing kids with this wide variety of opportunities.  We never know what they might LOVE to do!

Tuesday, November 6, 2018

Math Workspaces

We have been working hard to learn routines and independent work habits, so far in kindergarten.  I'm happy to report that kids LOVE our independent Work Spaces in math and they are really learning how to focus on their task and stick with it.

This week we introduced our Number Racks, also called Rekenreks.  The game they play involves pulling a Ten Frame Card and then moving the correct number of beads to the opposite side of the rack.  At this time, we are only using the top rack.

We have been working on subitizing, or seeing a set and knowing the number right away.  The ten frame  helps us to see the number.  Kids are starting to recognize a full ten frame as 10, a half full ten frame as 5, etc.


We have been working on creating and extending patterns.



One of our favorite Work Spaces involves the pattern blocks, putting shapes together, and creating shape pictures.  


Continuing with our number work, we have some number and ten frame matching games to play.


I've been so impressed with the independent work skills the kids are learning.  As a school, we work to take care of ourselves, take care of our school, and take care of each other.  By working independently, helping their friends when they need it, cleaning up after themselves, caring for our materials, and consistently working hard, they are certainly following our school guidelines!

I'm so proud of their work!

Monday, October 29, 2018

Connecting Experiences to Reading and Writing

I wish you could watch me unpack my car, when I get to school, on Monday mornings.  It's pretty hilarious!  Sometimes I'm hauling in 20 pumpkins.  Other times I have my arms full of flowers.  This week I had Peanut, the turtle and all of the books I love to read to the kids in November.  The reason I'm always carrying random items is that I love to provide experiences for the kids and every single experience leads to our literacy learning.

When we drew sunflowers, pumpkins, and apples we learned to draw by looking at detail and drawing what is actually there.  This ties into our Writer's Workshop time, when we want to be sure our illustrations show what is actually happening and we add detail to our drawings.  Those details will eventually end up in our writing.  Our goal is for our pictures to become more developed and recognizable while students are also able to communicate their story before beginning to write.



When we made applesauce, it connected to books we were reading, but it also served as a springboard for some of our writers!  Several kids chose to write about making applesauce.

One of our kindergarten standards is to use a combination of drawing, dictating, and
writing to compose informative/explanatory
texts in which they name what they are writing
about and supply some information about the topic.





I love having pets in our classroom.  The kids love to watch Steve and Peanut.  They're always doing curious things.  


You can imagine my excitement when one of our kindergartners draws and writes about our pets during Writer's Workshop.  I'm just thrilled when one of our experiences becomes writing or when we read a book and the kids run over to one of our pumpkins to show me what the book is talking about.  This is why I haul in a bunch of random things on Monday mornings!


Another of our kindergarten standards is to participate in collaborative conversations about kindergarten topics and texts with peers and adults in small and larger groups.  This is what we do all day long in kindergarten!  When I set these experiences up for kids, I want them to talk, discuss, think, share, and question. Often this talk will lead to writing and then some further reading.  It's so exciting!  This is something to think about when you're out and about with your kids.  Every single experience your kids have will contribute to their literacy lives! 

If you'd like to read a bit more about experiences and my inspiration for bringing them into the classroom, please check out this post on my early childhood literacy blog.  http://lovelaughterandliteracy.com/reggio-inspired/


Happy learning!

Thursday, October 11, 2018

Meet Mrs. Ross

Hello everyone!  Welcome to Kindergarten at Cascade View.  I don't know about you, but I really want to know about the people who teach my kids.  I want to know where they live, about their families, and what they enjoy doing when they are not working.  I wanted to share a bit about myself in this post.  Today, I'm just letting you "meet" me.  It's a long post, so I won't have my feelings hurt if you just skim or skip it altogether! 

Happy reading...
Hello Friends!  I'm Becca.  I'm a wife,  mom, and kindergarten teacher.  I'm passionate about all things home and family.  I love being home with my kids, hubby, and pets.  
I married my high school sweetheart.  (Awwww.)  We live in Snohomish, just up the hill from Cascade View.

We love our pets.  I'd have more, if I could convince my better half that it was a good idea. I think I'd get chickens. Cookie is our Holland Lop.  She's our most recent addition.  She's a snuggler, loves to run around the house, and makes me laugh when she kicks up her heels and does a 360. She's pretty cute too, but I guess there's no such thing as an ugly bunny.
Ah, Cooper.  This is Cooper as a puppy.  He was going to be our small dog.  Our yellow lab, Riley, died when he was 11.  Riley was my husband's first pet EVER.  As much as he loved Riley, when it was time to find a new dog, he asked if we could find a smaller breed.  We decided on a Laboradoodle.  The breeder estimated that Cooper would be about 50 pounds when he was full grown.  Well, Cooper weighed 50 pounds at about 4 months old and then went straight to 100! I swear, he's the size of a small horse.  So much for getting a small dog!  He's a sweetheart and he's full of personality.

Steve the stickbug lives at school.  He's super-easy to care for and the kids love watching him.  He's actually named Steve Jr. You see, stickbugs only need one to reproduce.  Steve Sr. laid eggs before he died.  The eggs sat in the dirt all summer.  Last fall, Steve Jr. hatched!


This is Peanut.  She is 31 years old and the kids love to watch her.  She likes fruit, but does not care for veggies.  She prefers crunchy bugs like meal worms, but will eat garden worms if she has to.




Our kids are our whole lives, as I'm sure is the case with most parents. My oldest is all about sports, which thrills my hubby to no end.  He is the sweetest boy you will ever meet.  He's caring and considerate, which I love!  He is a senior at Glacier Peak this year. Seriously, friends, don't blink!  He was starting kindergarten about 5 minutes ago and now he's applying for college.  

 

 
This little monkey is full of spunk.  She has been that way since the day she was born.  She spent her first 2 weeks of her life, at Children's Hospital, fighting for every breath.  She suffered from seizures and we were told that she had probably had a stroke.  The hospital staff prepared us to "care for her" since they expected she would be developmentally delayed from the lack of oxygen and her stroke.  Day by day, year by year, we realized that all of that "worst case scenario stuff" was a scenario we would not know as our reality.  We're glad she's a fighter and wouldn't change her spunk or personality for anything.  She's a perfectly healthy (except for the cyst in her brain), normally developing, little girl.  She loves soccer, hanging out with friends, and would prefer to watch Netflix over helping with chores around the house.  Does she sound like a typical teen?  She goes to school at Valley View.



I learned a love of gardening from my mom.  She always had a vegetable garden, tons of raspberries, and apple trees in our yard. I have good memories of weeding and working in the yard together, picking veggies from the garden, the smell of freshly canned fruit when I came home from school, and blowing bugs off the berries as I picked them.  My mom would always end up with a huge pan of berries, at the end of berry picking, and I would only have a handful.  I preferred to eat as I picked, and still do.
My home and garden are my happy places.  I love sitting on the deck, on a warm summer day, watching my kids and their friends play in the yard.  First and foremost, my yard is kid and dog friendly.  If I end up with a few flowers at the end of a football game, I consider it a bonus.  My kids and I garden together.  My hubby loves to be in the yard with us on the weekends.  My son has always been a really strong kid.  He lifts heavy bags of dirt and hauls them all over the yard.  He spreads wood chips in the spring, and loves watching landscaping shows with me.  He loves to be outside and will happily help on just about any project.
 
My daughter loves to wander the yard, but she's in it for the pretty stuff and doesn't like to work.  One of my passions is creating meaningful experiences for my kids.  We always have a project in the works.  My daughter loved collecting flowers from the yard, this summer, and creating art projects from the flower petals.
 
It came as no surprise to my family, when I went off to college, that I majored in Family and Consumer Science (formerly known as Home Ec.), and earned my teaching certificate.  I have endorsements in Family and Consumer Science, Early Childhood, Reading, and K-8 Education. Family and Consumer Science is a true passion of mine.  I love to cook, bake, sew, and basically do anything that seems to be a "traditional" female role.

FCS isn't just about cooking, baking, and being a homemaker. Family and Consumer Science provides individuals and families with knowledge that helps people make informed decisions about their well being, relationships, and resources to achieve a high quality of life. The field represents many areas, including human development, family finance, housing and interior design, food science, nutrition, wellness, textiles, apparel, family relations and dynamics, and consumer issues.  I'm a member of the American Association of Family and Consumer Sciences (AAFCS), as well as a member of the Washington chapter (WAFCS).
 

Family and Consumer Science is all about improving the quality of your life.  In my opinion, we can improve the quality of our lives through home arts.  Creating a healthy, happy, and comfortable home gives us a soft place to land at the end of the day.  I want my kids to have good memories of their time at home.  I want them to remember the smell of warm cookies coming out of the oven, the taste of homemade bread with butter and jam, and remember all of the projects and experiences we had as a family.

As much as I love my home life, I have a passion for EDUCATION! I teach little people to love learning and especially love literacy.  I absolutely love children's books, and teaching reading and writing, using children's literature. I earned my Master's degree in reading and literacy, in 2000.  It was a game changer for me.  I had always been very interested in math and science, as a teacher.  I didn't feel as well equipped to teach reading and writing.  I didn't like to read as a child and I was FAR from being a writer, as an adult.  I was trying to teach my kids to become life long readers and writers, but hated doing those things myself.  After spending two years, doing intense research and writing papers on reading and writing, I had a much better understanding of the way young children learned.  I had a clear picture of where I wanted to go with my teaching. I became very interested in Guided Reading, teaching with a balanced reading model, and especially Writer's Workshop.

In 2004, just after my daughter was born, my school district started our Collaborative Literacy Project. It started as a group of teachers, dedicated to literacy, involved in extensive training, who would become literacy leaders in our school district.  I was thrilled to have the opportunity to be involved in the program.  I've been able to observe amazing teachers, discuss best practices, receive training and resources, and eventually become a demonstration classroom, hosting teachers from within my school district as well as neighboring school districts.  I don't claim to be an expert in literacy, but it's truly a passion of mine, and I'm thrilled to share my beliefs about literacy with others.
I have thousands of books in my collection and can't seem to stop adding to it. I'm always finding new mentor texts to use with my young readers and writers.  I love to teach units of study, where we can dive into a specific author or genre.  I'm always shocked at the amazing conversations we have, even in kindergarten, around the books we are using in our units of study.  Kids can be such brilliant thinkers!
We all have our passions in life.  My passions are home, family, family and consumer science, early childhood, and literacy.  My blogs try to encompass all of these areas.  The mission of the AAFCS is to help people improve the quality of their lives.  My blogs are about helping people make literacy and qualilty home life priorities, thus improving the quality of life.  Isn't that what it's all about?  At the end of the day, it's all about home and family.
 
Thanks for joining me on this journey.  I write from my heart and hopefully you'll find a few pretty pictures too.

You can also find me at:
or
http://lovelaughterandliteracy.com/ (my early childhood literacy blog)

 

Small Motor Stations

We've started some Small Motor Stations in the morning, when kids first arrive at school.  These are activities designed to build muscle strength in our little hands and fingers, which in turn helps us in our ability to write.

I really LOVE Play-Doh and clay!  I will be sharing homemade Play-Doh recipes in an upcoming post.  


Pinching with tongs is a great way to build strength in our hands!  I put some squishy plastic balls in our bean table and gave the kids the challenge to remove them all with different types of tongs.  Challenge accepted!!


Legos are one of my favorite toys for building muscles in our fingers.  In addition, Legos are just awesome for developing creativity.



Once kids have the proper pencil grips, I encourage them to do some tracing and use our stencils.


This is one of my favorite stations.  We have a sand tray, rocks, and shells that kids use to create art pieces.  I take pictures of their pieces of work to display in the classroom.  Any activity that invites the kids to pinch like you see in the picture below, is awesome for developing muscles.  


We are writers in kindergarten and every fine motor activity we try will help us build the muscles and stamina we need for writing. 


You may have noticed your child coming home and showing you a bit of sign language.  We are on a mission to learn the signs for 26 letters in the first 30 days of school and we've reached our goal!  Not only does sign language help us connect our actions to letters and sounds, but we are also (secretly) sneaking in a bit of fine motor work!


I would encourage you to think about adding some fine motor activities into your daily routines.  Counting Cheerios, by moving them one by one, watering plants with a spray bottle, painting with small brushes, drawing with markers, and even cutting coupons from the Sunday paper are all great ways to build muscles in our hands!

Have fun!

Applesauce in Kindergarten


Yep, it's applesauce season!  We asked parents to send apples to school and they delivered!  We had a whole box of apples and all three kindergarten classes were apple to cook up a yummy treat. The book called Applesauce Season is one of my favorites.  I love that the characters in the book go to the farmers' market and buy a variety of different apples.  They use a food mill, which is what we use in the classroom. One of my favorite things is when books we read connect to real life experiences.

We got to slice up the apples with plastic knives, as part of our "small motor" stations in the morning.  It's not easy to cut through an apple with a plastic knife, but the kids really worked the muscles in their hands and got the job done.


Once the apples were sliced and the cores were thrown away, we put the apples into the crockpot. We filled it about half way with water and added a little cinnamon.  The apples cooked all day, on high, and we stirred them throughout the day.  The kids loved coming into the classroom after recess and smelling their snack cooking!


We used a slotted spoon to take the apples out, leaving water behind, and put them into the food mill.  The apples were hot and smelled amazing!


I called each over, during our Center Time, to smoosh the apples in the food mill.  The peels are left behind in the food mill and the apple sauce comes out of the little holes.


I think all of the kids would agree that the best part of making applesauce is EATING!  Most of the kids said it was the best applesauce they had ever eaten.  Only a few said they didn't care for it.  I told the kids that I will never force them to eat something we make in class.  We also talked about polite ways to say, "No thank you."  

 

This was such a good experience for the kids. If you are interested in purchasing a food mill, so you can make your own applesauce at home, I purchased mine at Walmart and I know they are also available on Amazon.  I hope I've inspired you to give it a try!  Your kids are experts now!