Handwriting Practice

Recently on one of the yahoo groups I belong to someone posted the best idea for writing.  It was from the program - Write from the Beginning.  I do not know how the program is structured but what I gleaned from the post on yahoo - this is what I have adapted for my classroom.

The writing process begins with a topic and the class brainstorms what they already know about this topic.   This is captured in a bubble map (I did not get a photo of this).   Next that information is transferred to a t-graph.  These are thinking maps.

We use the t-graph to form a sentence for handwriting practice.  I love this for several key reasons:
1.   The word choices are directly related to our current topics of study.
2.   Most of the sentences are just three words - simple, clear and easy to write.
3.   We work from one t-graph a week.  This gives students an opportunity to see how one topic can be written about in many ways:

 Seeds can transform.

Seeds have roots.

Seeds are plants.

Seeds grow big.

Occasionally, I may tweak a sentence like the one above.  On the t-graph the sentence would read "Seeds have sun."   I felt it was important to use the correct vocabulary for our sentence that related directly to our study of plants. 

I lead the children through handwriting each letter - one by one.  They write the sentence on their own one more time.  It is engaging and they seem very excited about the new topics.   It has made handwriting practice creative and from their words.

Another note about handwriting practice.  I keep handwriting and writing (journal writing) as two separate practices in the kindergarten.  The stage of writing development that most of my kinders are at is invented spelling.  I want their entire attention to be on the sounding out process and to not be concerned with forming their letters inside of lines at this point.  It is a complex process for a five year old to write down their thoughts with the correct sounds, putting spaces between words, and such.  I noticed that when I gave them lined paper for journal writing, they would stick to what they knew they could write.  I encourage my young writers to take risks and to build their writing.

And when they are practicing handwriting, I want them completely focused on the formation process.  I feel both processes are in the early stages of development and each need to be tended to with special care.

It's Jack's Beanstalk!

One of my favorite things is to create the atmosphere in the classroom that supports and expands the ideas we are currently exploring.  With Jack and the Beanstalk I love making a huge beanstalk.  Here is how I do this!

Step One:  Pull off three long rolls from your green bulletin board paper.  With a person at each end, twist the paper into a tube.

Step Two:  Secure two tubes to the wall.  I use clear packing tape to secure the tubes.  Next, place the third tube on top of the first two.  This creates  a more 3-dimensional stalk.

Step Three:  I make tracers for the children to use to make the leaves.  It is always a treat to work as a whole group on the floor like you see here the photo.  The children love it.  They are almost completely quiet as they work beside each other.

Step Four:  We put the leaves on the stalk .  I try to put leaves where there was tape to help hide it. 

Jack and the Bean Sprouts!

I like to start our study of seeds and plants with the story of Jack and the Beanstalk.  We plant pole beans and other seeds to grow over the next few months.  But in the meantime, it is so powerful to demonstrate how a bean "sprouts" by growing sprouts.  We observed them daily as we gave them their daily rinses.  Then, today, we had a sprout salad for snack!

Monday, I brought mung beans, lentil beans and alfalfa seeds.  We soaked them for most the day and then put them in their sprouting containers.

Each had their own container to sprout in!

We put the sprouts on a bed of lettuce and topped it with dressing.   I helped the children with "sprout" eating concerns by taking a large pinch of sprouts and eating them!  Most of the children tried it and many liked the sprouts.  I had a few who could not get enough!

A Little Seed Drama

This is an sweet little poem I love to act out as we explore the world seeds and beans.  It is an adaptation of two poems. 

        The little brown seeds went to sleep in the ground.
        In their little brown nightgowns they slept very sound.
        Old Winter, he roared and he raged overhead.
        But the little brown seeds did not move in their bed.

        But when Spring came tiptoeing over the lea
        with fingers to lips as soft as can be.
        “Wake!” called the Sunshine, “And creep to the light!”
        “Wake!” called the Raindrops bright!

        The little brown seeds just lifted their heads,
        Slipped off their nighties and jumped out of bed!!

Cast of Characters:

four seeds - hidden under a brown cloth
Old Winter - a blue cape or cloth to drape
Spring - a cloth or silk cape
Sun - painted sun on pole
Raindrops - painted drops on pole

The seeds sleeping underground (four children under brown cloth).

 Old Man Winter (Blue "cape") dancing over the covered seeds.

Lady Spring tiptoeing over the sleeping seeds. (Used one of my rainbow silks as her cloak of spring!)

Hand painted sun on a pole danced over the seeds.

The raindrops came on a pole as well. (Painted on poster board)

Jack and the Beanstalk - Math Ideas

 This week we began the tale of Jack and the Beanstalk.  Today I thought I would share a few of the math activities we have been doing.  They are obvious ideas but perhaps new in the application in this story!  I wanted to take the concepts of "enormous" and "giant"  and bring them to life with math.

The Giant's Hand and Estimation

1. I had a super large hand photocopied on paper that we estimated how many beans would fit in the palm of the "giant's" hand.  Guesses ranged from 4 to 1000.   We counted out exactly how many would fit - which was 114 beans.  They wrote that on the paper.  
2. Next, I asked the students to trace their hands either inside the giant's hand or on the back.  They estimated how many beans would fit in their paper hand.   They counted the beans and found the answer.
3. They wrote their answers on their paper hand.

 The Giant's Foot and Non Standard Measurement

I made the giant's shoe print by tracing a boot and blowing it up on the copier (legal size).  I made two shoe prints for each student.

I had each child cut out two Giant's shoe prints.  They explored the Giant's shoe print by comparing it to their own foot size.

I modeled measuring the group time carpet with the Giant's shoe print.  I then let the children measure different things in the classroom.  They brainstormed a list of things to measure at home.

One student asked if he could measure the Giant's foot with cubes.  It was 16 cubes long.  He then suggested that we could figure out how many cubes the things we measured were using this information!  Pretty cool!