Kindergarten Partner Reading

Through the Reader's Workshop, we have been building up to and practicing partner reading all year! 

More recently, we began learning how to write "How To" books in Writer's Workshop.  To practice, we decided to teach "How To Partner Read," since we are such experts.  Our poster is especially fabulous, since it has pictures of us!

 How To Partner Read

1. Get your Book Bag

2. Sit on the floor EEKK Style (Elbow, Elbow, Knee, Knee) with your partner

  3.Read your book to your partner

  4. Talk about the book

  5. Then it's your partner's turn

These Kindergarten partner reading experts know that it is not enough to just figure out the words in the book.  We also have to understand the book and talk about it.  We have practiced a lot of different ways to talk about your book with your partner.

The links below are videos of students engaged in partner reading.  Listen in as students work on their decoding, fluency, and comprehension with their partners. Afterwards we always self-assess by "checking in," (which is uses language and a structure from the Daily 5).

Mrs. Curry's AM Class Can Partner Read- Video 

 Mrs. Curry's PM Class Can Partner Read- Video

Since we are always self assessing, students watched themselves in the videos from these links.  Afterwards we talked about our strengths and weaknesses.  The answers the students generated are on the chart below.  The most impressive part is that these are  STUDENT GENERATED ANSWERS!  (I definitely did my happy teacher dance after all this great thinking!!!) It is posted on our "Reading is Thinking!" bulletin board so that we can look at it and remember the things we need to be working on.

Happy 100th Day of School!

This year our 100th Day Celebration came a little late because of all the school we missed during Hurricane Sandy.  But that didn't stop us from celebrating now!

 All year long we have been adding a straw each day to our "Counting School Days" pocket chart.  This helped teach concepts of adding more and place value.  It was exciting each time we had to make a group of 10 straws... but it was REALLY exciting when we combined out 10 groups of 10 into a giant group of 100!!! 

 

In preparation for our 100th Day of school, students decorated t-shirts with 100 things of their choice to wear in a parade around the school.  We also made crowns to wear.  We decorated headbands with 10 items inside each of the 10 boxes, and then we colored a big sign that said we are "100 Days Smarter!"

 

  

After the parade, we played with our 100 Mats- adding 10 items inside each of the 10 circles.

 

 

Also, this week in Math Workshop we have been working with the number 100.  We have been working on filling in missing numbers in a 100s chart.  We have been putting together 100s Board puzzles.  In our Partner Station, we have been working more with our 100s Mats.  We have even played Chutes & Ladders, because it looks just like a 100s chart!

 We had so much fun!  Happy 100th Day of School!

Kindergarten Scientists: Extending Our Reseach!

Lately we have been learning about "Families, Feelings, and Friends." As you may remember, we read Stellaluna (about a bat who has to live with a family of birds) which made us wonder about real life bats and birds.  We generated a list of questions the students had, and I asked them where we could find the answers.  We decided to look in nonfiction, teaching books from the school library about bats and birds to find the answers to our questions.

The kids LOVED being scientists, researching all about bats and birds... which gave me an idea.  All the students have their own "Good Fit" book bags (courtesy of the JTEA) so their can read books on their level to themselves and to partners.  So, I asked them to find a book from their book bag about an animal and generate their own questions from it.

OUR BOOKS- AM 

 

 

OUR BOOKS- PM 

 

  

 

 These books gave us questions about animals, so we wrote those questions on post-it notes.  We asked things like:

"Why do bears sleep all winter?" Miles 

"How big can whales be?"  Max, Lauren, Brent, Joe, and Ariel

"Are tigers a kind of cat?" Jenna & Charlie

"Why do sea horses have a pouch?" Emma

"Can all birds fly?" Katie

"What do cows eat?" Nick D.

"Where do bears live?" Giovanni & Tina

"Why do bears climb?" Grace

"How do fish swim?" Mikayla

"What colors can snakes be?" Dylan, Dalton, Lexi, and Nicholaas H.

Just like before, we looked for the answers to our questions in teaching books from the library!

 

 Finally, we wrote the answers to our questions on post-it notes and put them on big posters.  As a culminating activity we shared our Research Posters with the kids in our class and them hung them in the hallway to teach other kids the things that we learned!  Parents, be sure to stop by the Kindergarten hallway during conferences to see all our hard work!!