Research in Kindergarten?

You betcha!

     I love when someone who doesn't spend a lot of time in kindergarten walks into my room and when they see what the kids are doing, their jaw drops open and they say something like, "I can't believe that kindergartners are subtracting/writing poetry/doing research." We do so much more in kindergarten than we did even a few years ago, and visitors are often surprised at how much we challenge our little guys. It sure ain't your Grandma's kindergarten anymore!

     This happened to me a couple of weeks ago when we were in the middle of our nonfiction unit. One of the upper grade teachers in my school popped in and was amazed to see that the kids were doing independent research projects. I told her we were tackling the process in a "kindergarten friendly" way, which involves a few steps that I've tweaked over the past few years so that all of the kids can be successful. I thought I would share in case anyone is looking for a way to get started. This is what we did . . .

Step 1: Prep
           I decided that we would just focus on animals, so I came up with three facts that I thought would be both interesting and easy to research. The kids were responsible for finding out what their animal looks like, what it eats and where it lives. I gathered a whole bunch of nonfiction animal books for the kids to choose from. (This took a little bit of time because I wanted to make sure that the books I picked had clear illustrations because many had text that was just not accessible to most of my beginning readers.) Then, I got the materials ready for the first day of research. I put three small stickies with icons for each fact on a sentence strip for each student. We were ready to go! 

Step 2: Research
     For each of the first three days, I focused my Readers' Workshop mini-lesson on looking for one of the chosen facts. Modeling with a big book, I showed the class how to find the information I was looking for and how to mark it with the matching sticky note. When I sent them off to get to work, they were so excited to find what they were looking for - we were official researchers!

Step 3: Note Taking
     On each of the days that we did our research in Step 2, we carried over our project into our Writers' Workshop time. I gave the kids a tri-fold graphic organizer to write down the information they had collected that day. (I enlarged onto 12x18 construction paper so they had a big space to write in.) We discussed making illustrations true to life and the kids were encouraged to add details.

 I love how this little researcher spelled "koalas" and "trees."

Step 4: Publishing
     Once all of the research was done, we took all of the facts we'd learned and wrote nonfiction books about our animals. I simply provided a cover sheet and blank pages and the kids went to town. They did such a great job! Even my reluctant writers were excited to share their new knowledge. The kids were so proud of their finished books that we visited our 5th Grade Reading Buddies to show them off.

Our first Reading and Writing nonfiction units of study were a big success and the kids really have a firm grasp on how to read and write nonfiction books. If you'd like to give it a try, you can download the materials I used by clicking on the picture below.  Happy Researching!

 

 

My Favorite Things Freebie

     We had a full afternoon of Parent Teacher conferences today and boy, am I tired of hearing myself talk!  On the ride home I decided that I was going to get home, relax and not say another word all night. That was before I realized that the remake of The Sound of Music was on. Now I'm sitting here, an old nostalgic fool, singing along with Maria and the children at the top of my lungs. (I'm not taking it personally that my dog is next to me howling . . .) My poor voice will no doubt pay the price tomorrow, but I consider that a small price to pay for bright copper kettles and warm woolen mittens! The Sound of Music just makes me happy. (And I have to say, Carrie Underwood had some big shoes to fill and I think she's doing a great job!)
     As Maria belted out, "A Few of My Favorite Things," it made me think of a book I just used with my class during our Early Print Strategies unit.  One of the strategies we worked on was "Getting you mouth ready to say the word." To reinforce and strengthen this skill, I made an emergent reader that really requires the kids to attend to the first letter of the word, because after looking at the picture for clues, the unfamiliar word is not always the obvious choice. Is that a dog or a puppy? A computer or a laptop? A coat or a jacket? There are a couple of different versions of the book, so you can keep the kids on their toes!  You can grab a copy by clicking on the picture if you'd like to try it with your kids.
Have a great night and try to sing out loud at least once tomorrow!
   

Shopping in My Long-Johns

Even though I have been known to partake in the past, I made an effort to stay away from the Black Friday craziness this weekend. It was just too cold to go out at 5 am to get a good deal. I'm holding out for Cyber Monday instead.  I plan to come right home from school tomorrow, build a fire in the fireplace, fire up my laptop and do my Christmas Shopping online. My family has become very skilled at adding to their Amazon wishlists throughout the year, so I have a great place to start. My challenge is going to be to not play the "one present for them, one for me" game which I love to play.

I'm sure you've heard about the big Teachers Pays Teachers Cyber-Monday sale. It's definitely on my "shop in my long-johns" list of places to visit tomorrow. I spent a couple of hours filling up my wish list today so I can just check out and stock up for the winter. (I sound like a squirrel - LOL!) I'm also offering an additional 20% off all the items in my store for the next two days, so you can get a total of 28% off by using the code "CYBER."

I have a few new items listed for you to take a peek at. (As usual, I'll send the first three comments their choice of the goodies below . . .)

My favorite is the Holiday Pattern Block Cards I made for my Math Stations. My kids LOVE to make pictures with pattern blocks and I came up with a set of Christmas and Hanukkah cards that I think they're really going to love. Click on the picture to get a better look.

Keeping the kids engaged during December is always tricky because they're so excited for the holidays. You know what they say - if you can't beat them, join them!  With this in mind, I made a set of holiday themed math sheets to reinforce counting, addition, graphing and using ten frames.

The last new item is based on my favorite Christmas carol, The 12 Days of Christmas. This cute booklet will give the kids practice writing numbers and number words, using ten frames and representing quantities up to 12.  I also made an alternative version, The 12 Days of Friendship for the kids in my class who don't celebrate Christmas.

I wish you happy cyber-shopping tomorrow. I hope you get tons of good deals and find presents for both yourself and your loved ones!

Happy Turkey Week Freebie

   While blog-hopping today I noticed that some of you have the whole week off for Thanksgiving - you lucky turkeys! I hope that you enjoy a nice, long break with your families.

My Classroom Door - Gobble! Gobble!

     Around here, we go to school for full days on Monday and Tuesday and then have an early release on Wednesday. As you can imagine, the kids are pretty riled up by Wednesday and it's a little tricky to contain their energy. So, I have a bunch of cute Thanksgiving activities planned that will keep them learning but add a little dash of fun. If you're looking for a few new things for your plans, be sure to enter the Thanksgiving Giveaway. You still have a few hours to enter and you could win some goodies to get you through the week. (Friday and Saturday's daily winners are Miranda and Rose - ladies, email me to let me know which of the prizes you'd like!)

     For those of you teaching through Wednesday, I have a great Freebie for you to show how thankful I am that you take the time to visit my blog.

     As a little Thanksgiving Present, I've got the day before your break covered. You can grab this Thanksgiving packet filled with fun yet purposeful activities. You'll find reading, writing, math and word study activities - enough for the whole day. Just click on the picture. Enjoy!

Thanksgiving Giveaway

     During this season of giving thanks and counting blessings, I am reminded that one thing that I'm especially thankful for is the terrific group of people I work with. We have such a giving, supportive and compassionate bunch of teachers and staff that I consider myself very lucky to a part of the gang. So . . . to share a little of the love, two of my colleagues (Sandra is on the kindergarten team with me and Cortney teaches first grade) and I are teaming up to host a little Thanksgiving Giveaway to say thanks for letting us share our ideas and thoughts with you.

     We picked some of our favorite Thanksgiving activities and have created a Prize Pack that could add a little fun to your classroom next week before the holiday break. Here are the goodies (click on the pics for more details):

     We'll pick one Grand prize winner on Sunday night (using Rafflecopter) who will win all of the prizes listed above.  You can follow Sandra's TPT store and Cortney's new blog Spicy Peaches and TPT store as well as this blog and my TPT store to earn up to 5 entries a day. We'll also randomly pick 1 winner a day (from the comments below) to receive winner's choice of any 1 prize from the list, so be sure to leave your email address for an extra chance to win.
Have a great weekend!

a Rafflecopter giveaway
 

Calling All Word Detectives

     Our first marking period ended yesterday and we're knee deep in assessment. If you've been teaching for awhile like I have, you might remember the days when our report cards had objectives like, "Enjoys books" and "Colors with control." Ahh . . . the good old days . . .

     Now that we're one trimester in, all of the routines, procedures and expectations are solid and we can step things up a notch.  We just started a new Word Study plan (which I'm in LOVE with and will write about soon) and literacy stations are moving along really well. I've re-worked a couple of my stations this year to make them a little more engaging, and I'm pretty happy with the changes.

     One station that got a face lift was the Writing the Room Station. I've done this station for years, and the kids traditionally write words that they find in the classroom. I've always encouraged the kids to only write words that they can read, but especially in the beginning of the year, this can be a little tricky for some of the kids. So . . . out with Writing the Room and in with the Detective Station. Rather than finding words that naturally occur in the classroom, my little word detectives have to hunt for picture cards that I've hidden around the room.

     In the beginning of the year, I used cards with pictures and words on them, and the kids had to simply copy the words. (They especially like the Case of the Missing Friends when they had to find pictures of all of the kids in the class and copy their names.) Now, we're moving on to the kids finding picture cards without words and writing the sounds they hear. One of the great things about doing it this way is that it is self-differentiating.  Some kids are just writing the initial sound they hear in each word, some are writing more.  Right now, I have simple CVC picture cards and the kids are doing a great job.

     If you want to give your little detectives a chance to solve the case, you can grab the kit by clicking on the picture.  Enjoy!

Little Scientists, Big Ideas

We've been working on our science launch unit and I'm so happy with how well it's been going. I have to admit, science often gets the short straw in my classroom. With reading, writing, math, and word study pressures, when something's got to give, it's typically been science.  I've made a vow this year to try harder to give science it's due.  So far, so good!

We started by making an anchor chart of all of the things scientists do. We're using sticky notes so we can add ideas as we go. (One that did not make the list - one little boy said, "My Daddy said that one day, scientists will create a pill that will stop my mom from nagging him," LMAO!!!)

One thing that is new to us this year is the use of Science Notebooks. I haven't used then before so I spent a good bit of time figuring out how I wanted to set them up.  I decided that I wanted a science notebook that would give me some structure but would also allow me to add some things along the way. I found a really cute, simple template on TPT that is working perfectly for us. (It's by Sandra Menhart and you can find it here. I also picked up her Rainbow Numbers and my kids LOVE them!)

I copied the pages single-sided, added a copy of our Anchor Chart as the first page and bound them together with my binding machine.  They look so official, don't they?

We talked about all of the different kinds of scientists that there are and the different things that they study.  I found a great Powerpoint over at Kindergarten, Kindergarten about this and the kids loved learning words such as paleontologist and entomologist. One smarty pants even noticed that many of the names ended with -gist. We added this new learning to our notebooks. This is where the format of the journal came in handy - we glued something on the left hand side, and wrote on the right - perfect!

Our next lesson was: "Scientists make observations by looking closely at things".  We talked about the importance of drawing exactly what we see - no rainbow pumpkins, please! A cute little scientist craftivity added a little variety to our notebooks and gave us a chance to practice some fine motor skills at the same time.

When my sister brought  me the last three green tomatoes from her tomato plant last weekend so they wouldn't freeze on the plant, I knew they were perfect for my next lesson: "Scientists notice changes and record them." We observed and recorded what the tomatoes looked like on Day 1, then we will draw them again when they ripen (or when I concede that since it's been a week they're probably not going to ripen and perhaps it's time to sneak in the ripened tomatoes I got today at Shoprite).

The next couple of lessons will focus on wondering, posing questions and finding answers. This "launch" unit is new to me so I'd love some ideas about where to go next. If you have some tips, I'd love to hear them. Sandra Menhart has generously donated three copies of her cute Science Notebook to give away to my fantastic followers.  I'll send one to the first three who leave a notebook tip in a comment.

I hope you have a class full of eager scientists and a year full of wonder . . .