Jack and Jill

The month of March will be spent learning Nursery Rhymes!

Today we learned about Jack and Jill

We focused on sequencing. What happened 1st, 2nd, and 3rd? 

This is a fantastic comprehension question to ask your child as you read together. This helps builds a foundation of skills that are necessary for reading! Next time you are reading with your child, ask them what happened in the story. Ask them about the characters, what they did and maybe what your child would do if they were in the book. They could even make predictions as to what would happen if the ending was different!!

We used Jack and Jill to help us during Shared Reading Time today. This was a fun way to find high frequency words, simple blends, and even rhyming words! By letting the kids use the pointer while the class choral read, it helped with one to one correspondence, line sweeping, left to right, as well as other basic early reading skills.

The Gingerbread Man

Positions.......

We used a Gingerbread Man and his house to help us understand POSITION WORDS today!

Mathematical learning in young children is strongly linked to sense perception and concrete experience. Children move toward an understanding of symbols, and eventually abstract concepts, only after they have first experienced ideas on a concrete level. The more avenues there are to receive data through the senses, the more connections the brain can make. The more connections that are made, the better a learner can understand a new idea. ~Sutton, J. & Krueger, A. (Eds.). (2002)

"On, Under, Above, Up, Over, Down, Behind, Below, Top, Bottom, In front of, Next to, Beside, Far, and Near" are some of the words we used while positioning our Gingerbread Man with his house!

 Afterwards, we were able to find some yummy gingerbread men to eat! They were hiding ON TOP of the shelf, BESIDE the window, ABOVE teacher's chair, and NEXT TO the white boards!

 We all took ONE bite! Then we used our paper gingerbread men to GRAPH our bites!

 See our results?! Which one had the most? Which one had the least?

  Run! Run! As fast as you can! You can't catch me, I'm the Gingerbread Man!

What a FUN story to tell and RE-tell!! We used props and puppets to help us tell this story!

We are getting pretty good at figuring out what happens at the beginning, middle, and end of our stories! What great COMPREHENSION these kiddos have!

Y is for Abiyoyo

If you have never read the story Abiyoyo by Pete Seeger you're missing out! I was introduced to this story by my fellow Kindergarten Teachers years ago, and I instantly fell in love! It's based on a South African Lullaby, and the kids love it!

We listened to Pete Seeger sing/tell the story, we talked about the characters and what happened at the beginning, middle and end. 

Then, we ACTED IT OUT! What fantastic little actors I have!!

Look at the Drama!! HA! I love love love them!

 We illustrated the beginning, middle, and end of the story after we acted it out.....

Afternoon Actors:

What a FUN and exciting day!!

Children acquire many skills from acting out stories. Children’s oral language skills—vocabulary and narrative understanding—are enhanced. These skills are identified as key predictors in reading skills; they are the basis for comprehension. In addition, children learn about sequencing and story elements. 

~Faith Polk, Ph.D. Education Consultant