Report Writing!

We have started a new genre of writing in Writer's Workshop! 

We have started nonfiction/report writing! Woo hoo! It gives us a chance to cover lots of science, and also learn about animals. Kids love animals. So it's a high interest theme :) 

Each day, we learn about an animal by reading a nonfiction book together. Then the children write simple sentences about the animal. It's a great way for them to practice the skill of independently writing, because the format is easy to understand. They write one thing about how the animal looks, one thing about how it moves, one thing about where it lives, and one thing about what it eats. Before they know it, your child has written four sentences! 

Your child's writing may look like gibberish- but it's not! They are all at different stages of writing development. Most of the children are now writing phonetically (writing words they way they sound). That is AWESOME for this time of the year! Seriously. Please don't be stressed about incorrect spelling, the spelling will improve as the year progresses and they become better readers. Praise them for sounding out the words to write! That is a difficult combination of many skills we've been learning (concepts of print , alphabet knowledge, letter formation, AND phonemic awareness). Ask them to read their writing to you- soon you, too , can become fluent in  "kindergarten." :)

If you have any interesting pets- snakes, rabbits, iguanas, etc., and are interested in bringing them to our room, please let me know!  As scientists and writers, we can learn a lot to write about by observing an animal.

Guest Blogger!

I have a rather long post that I've been working on and hope to finish tomorrow. But in the meantime-

My aunt, Leigh Jones, recently stopped by our classroom. Aunt Leigh is a nationally recognized journalist- she's been a writer for Reuters and is currently an editor for the National Law Journal (I'm a little proud of her!). Anyway, she asked if she could write a guest blog- and I was honored to have her do it!

My name is Leigh Jones, and I am Miss Cramer’s aunt. I recently visited Miss Cramer’s class, when I was in Edmond to see my family for Thanksgiving. I had such a memorable experience at Northern Hills Elementary that I wanted to write a post about it on the “Miss Cramer’s Kindergarten Class” blog. She was kind enough to let me.

The afternoon I spent with Miss Cramer and her class of “friends” made me nostalgic for my former career as a teacher—I taught middle and high school English before I became a journalist. I also was reminded of my own elementary school years and all the caring, patient teachers who taught me to love learning. 
I saw that same love of learning in her students on the afternoon of Nov. 26, when I visited her classroom as they were returning from recess and lunch. They were amazing little people, with precious smiles and wide eyes taking in the instructions from their teacher about the afternoon’s activities. 

While I was there, they were busy reading books, working on spelling and moving throughout the different activity centers in the classroom. 

I don’t have kids of my own, and I haven’t spent much time with groups of small children, so the afternoon was unfamiliar territory for me. I had never seen such tiny chairs! 

But I do know this: The future is under construction in those classrooms at Northern Hills. And knowing that, I have much for which to be thankful.

Centers this week. And Kung Fu Fighting.

This week we started Buddy Reading during centers. We learned what close reading should look like and practiced it. While at buddy reading, students practice reading leveled books to their classmates. They learned how to use their Buddy Reading Log to record the books they read. This is a really cool way for the kids to track their own progress and see themselves grow as a reader. Their buddy reading log is in a folder, which also has a spot where the kiddos can see which sight words they know. I love routines that help the kids see how they are learning!

Here are some pictures of buddy readers and other hard workers at centers! :)

Kyle and Hayley decided to make it a race at the sight word work center. At this center they practice writing the word, recognizing it in different fonts, and building it with letters. 

Paige loves her sight word watch :)

Scott builds the word " mix" at the Word Building center.

Soona sorts letters at Letter Work. At this center, the kids practice recognizing letters even when they are in different fonts.

Brian works on sight words at the letter stamp center. The kids trace the word, stamp it, then decorate the letters of the sight word (with markers! Woo hoo!).

Elena at the Rhyming Center. Children sort different picture tiles into the rhyming  "house" it belongs in .

Sawyer searches for sight words using a magnifying glass at the Sight Word Detective center.

Clayton practices using his reading finger while reading a rhyming book.

Karson works on Success Maker at the computer center. The kids are awesome at logging themselves in now!

Sully searches for sight words in magazines to cut out and paste in her sight word book.

Sawyer used his reading strategies to practice reading "Pumpkin Happy," the story at the Book Making center.

Trevor practiced sounding out simple words at the Stretchy Snake center. 

Elli concentrates hard to find all the "likes," on the "iPad." :) while they lack, everything an actual iPad has, the kids get to use dry erase markers on these faux "iPads." Kids love dry erase markers. Fact.

Paige writes down different friends' names at Write the Room. 

Ellery illustrates our poem about buddy reading in her poetry journal. Every week or two we learn a new poem and practice reading it. Then we add it to our poetry journals. At the end of the year, the children will get to take home their poetry journal , full of poems they know how to read.

If you've made it this far into the post , you might be wondering... Where's the Kung Fu Fighting?? And why is my kindergarten practicing Kung Fu at school? :) We aren't really , but we have a lot of fun dancing to the song during brain breaks! Enjoy watching... :)

Links for resources that go along with our theme this week!

Some awesome teachers from Memphis, Tennessee have compiled great activities that go along with our curriculum.  These activities and worksheets follow right along with our Reading Street themes.  Here is a link with the activities that go along with our story for this week, "Dig, Dig, Digging." 

http://www.scsk12.org/SCS/subject-areas/Kindergarten-Kove/K.1.6.html

This week in pictures and words!

We had a busy week! The walkathon was great fun, we had a great Pact Pal visit, went to the computer lab 3 times, did Pumpkin Predictions, and got to check out new library books/check out the Tree Loft! We got a lot done!

(To clarify- library books are due back by Thursday. Both library books and homework folders are due back every Thursday.)

This week out focus story was Goldilocks and the Three Bears. Our comprehension focus was Characters. We also focused on identifying whether or not a story was fiction (fantasy) or nonfiction (real).  Our letter of the week was T. We worked on hearing it at the beginning and ending of words, writing it, and recognizing it in print. Our phonemic awareness skill is segmenting words into individual sounds (see this week's homework for more information about segmenting).

In addition to the core curriculum, we did a pumpkin prediction mini unit (see the previous post for more on that!) and a mini unit on bats. We illustrated and practiced reading a nonfiction book called All About Bats. We labeled a picture with all the parts of a bat. We read another nonfiction book about bats and used a graphic organizer to write mini reports on bats. The children were asked to write about how bats look, what they eat, where they live and how they move. 

Thursday, we worked on collecting data about spiders. We polled the class, asking, "Are you afraid of spiders?" The kiddos recorded the data and the wrote about it. 

And firefighters! I almost forgot about the firefighters ! We had a fire safety presentation from the Edmond Fire Department. I'll post more pictures from that in a later post (the fireman crawled through a sea of pre-K and Kinders on his hands and knees !). Here's a picture of the class in front of the fire truck.

Here are some pictures from centers this week:

Se'Kyia at sight word work 

Clayton and Brooklyn at the rhyming center.

Elli responding to this week's listening center book- "Skeleton Meets Mummy ."

Ellery at book making. The book this week is about different kinds of community helpers.

Deakon is reading the room .

Karson at the pocket chart center. 

Se'Kyia and Cameron at "Magic Sight Words."

Presley with her work from the rainbow sight words center.

Elena working on rhyming houses.

Sawyer working on beginning sounds at the environmental print center.

Paige practices sorting.

Sully practices writing her friends ' names at write the room.

It was Ellery's birthday on Thursday, so her family came by with a treat and a book to read. The children loved listening to The Runaway Pumpkin!

And that was our week in a nutshell ! Thanks for keeping up with our classroom !

Pact Pals and Walkathon Pictures

Thank you to all the parents who helped make the walkathon a success! The children had an awesome time and the rain held off for us! It was great :) Here are a couple pictures I snapped before the children took off:

Friday was also our last visit from our Pact Pals, Lindsey and Spencer! We loved having them come! Lindsey even brought a craft for the kids to do- class pictures to decorate! We will miss seeing them!

Pumpkin Predictions

Today we combined science and math for a pumpkin prediction lesson!

We practiced using some new(ish) vocabulary: observe, describe, predict, sink, float, surface, pulp

We started by looking at the pumpkin and making predictions. We predicted how many seeds would be inside the pumpkin. We predicted whether or not we thought the pumpkin would float in water. After making out predictions, we put the pumpkin in water and observed what happened. It floated!

Next, we cut the pumpkin open. Nearly every child was willing to put their hand in the pumpkin so that they could describe how it felt! :) We learned about the parts of the pumpkin- skin , stem, seeds , and pulp. After we pulled out all the seeds , we put them in groups of 10. We skip counted by tens to find out how many seeds were in our pumpkin. There were 332! The children were so excited about our pumpkin that they all wanted to take home seeds :) Here's a couple pictures of our pumpkin exploration!