Common Courtesies in Kindergarten

How did our class earn 93 marbles in these early weeks of kindergarten? (Yes, we really did count all those marbles together!) Why, by "doing the right thing!" We can be very proud of all the many acts of kindness displayed by our students' behavior. We have been talking about the many ways we can show each other common courtesies, beginning with "thank you," "no, thank you," and "please." Being considerate and trying "to do the right thing" makes for a more pleasant atmosphere for everyone. Keep up the great work, everyone!

Since last week our class has been exploring how to make up stories using sequence cards that have no words. We are talking about studying the pictures for clues as to how the story might go. We need our stories to match the pictures. We are giving the characters names to help us with our storytelling. We use our imaginations to create stories, which is also a great language building activity. Developing storytelling skills is a great way to help us with both reading and independent writing.
Next, we will expand storytelling to include wordless books and pictures.

This Tuesday we started our writing workshop. Each day we begin with a mini-lesson which introduces the focus for that day's session. We brainstorm ideas from our lives. Once topics are chosen, the pictures are drawn next. Then the children are encouraged to either write a sentence or labels about their stories using phonetic spelling. The children are enthusiastically sharing their stories with each other. What great stories they have to tell! Stories about their pets have been most popular.