32/180 MAKE IT YOUR OWN ALPHABET FRIEZE

I remember an Open Court alphabet frieze that used a picture of a dog for the Hh card.

It represented the sound the dog made when it was breathing.

I never quite thought that was a good match.

Oh, then there's the frieze that had a train under the Tt.

It still makes me mad when I think about it!

Early literacy teachers know why.

Years ago, I walked into new teacher Paul's class 

and noticed he made his own alphabet frieze.

What a simple, yet meaningful way to teach phonics and letters!

I've always tried to have one included in every classroom since.

I use the standard, mandated, reading program frieze, and...

the students and I build one together, so we usually ended up with 2 friezes.

When I became a mom, both my sons had personalized alphabet friezes too!

With more freedom in ETK this year, we are only using one alphabet frieze. 

I start off with blank letter cards posted in sequence.

I color the vowels red.

When I teach K-2, I have 2 separate cards for each vowels, sometimes 3 for Aa, 2 for Gg and Cc.

For ETK, I just have one of each letter.

The first pictures that goes up on the alphabet frieze are the students.

As the year goes on, I add photos, pictures, drawings one at a time. 

Each has to hold meaning for students.

Most are suggested by the students.

After 31 days of not drilling letter names or sounds,

most of my students recognize and know the sounds to the letters:

Aa, Bb, Dd, Ee, Jj, Nn, Uu, Vv, and Yy

Those are the letters that begin the names of the students in class.

"B for Brandon!" "J for Julian!"

and I have my power V's (Victoria, Vanessa, and Valentina)! 

31/180 DAILY CHECK IN ROUTINES

Our curriculum guide suggested that we have the students sign in daily.

Well, that seemed like a good idea, except that it would take a long time to have each child sign in.

I know because I tried it one day.

We ended up having kids come up during breakfast to sign in.

Maybe I will try it later in the year or call them up one at a time.

For now, students check in each morning by finding their name cards (printed name and photo), and then placing their name cards in a pocket chart. Pocket chart has name labels taped on so that students can match name cards with name label.

At first, students had a challenging time matching names. But happy to say, that they can all match their names now, even though a few still don't recognize their names from a group of names. Small steps... later on in the year, I will replace the name photo cards with just written names and then move towards recognizing last names.


After all the cards are placed in pocket chart, we start our morning rote counting. We count 3x each morning.

1. We count from 0-10 using our fingers pointing up.  Then I turn fingers downward towards the floor and we count backwards from 10 fingers to 0. Zero is important!

2. After our 10 count. We count how many students are here each day (usually 25). I point to each name photo as students count. We also visual look at how many photos are missing to count how many students are NOT HERE.

3. Last we make a circle and count/exercise to 100 using this song: Count to 100  I don't use the video, just the song.

Then it's breakfast.
Simple,
Predictable,
Opening routines that teach.

30/180 SICK DAY

First sick day of the year.

Lots of coughing, fevers, and runny noses in Room 27 of late.

Hopefully tomorrow  will be better.

29/180 IMAGINE...

One thing I absolutely love about ECE (Early Childhood Education),
is that you don't have to dictate how children should play or what they should do.
As long as it's safe and doesn't hurt anyone emotionally or physically, it's all good!
I love that my "standards" focus on the social-emotional just as much as the academics.
It's important.

 Put out the mats today without any directions and this happened!

Not sure what was going on here, 

but they were cooperating and working together!

 A came running up to me to share
what she discovered holding cones to her ears!
It was like magic!

And there's always the big boxes!

28/180 LETS PLAY A GAME!

Visual discrimination: Matching upper case letters with upper case letters
(I can add lowercase letters later on in the year)

Different ways to play...
(Plates with letters written on them, 2 of each letter)

1. Place all the letter plates up.
2. Students take turns finding 2 letters that are alike (a match!)

1. Place one set of letter plates up.

2. Introduce each letter and give student a letter plate.

3. Student walks around looking for match of the plate he/she has.

1. Place letter plates face down.

2. Students take turns playing concentration.

3. I limit the number of letters I use. (52 plates is challenging!)

WITH A LITTLE HELP FROM MY FRIENDS...

Teaching can be so isolating.

You need to surround yourself with people that will support you in tough times, 

celebrate with you in good times, 

and push you to be better than you thought you could be.

Today we celebrated Sophia's 50th.

3-4 Decades of friendship and collaboration for most of the educators below... 

(Zuly is a 2nd year teacher and former TA)

Love them all.

27/180 A WEEK OF MORNING MESSAGES

I have always thought that you could pretty much teach all the literacy standards through Daily News.

I still believe that.

I hadn't started Daily News aka Morning Message with this class, 

but this week I did. 

I will model writing right now, but will gradually release the marker to students as they gain a better understanding of print, letters, sounds, words, and how they work together.

Monday MM Goal: Can you find the letter O?

Tuesday MM Objectives:
Who helps you?
Can you find your name?

Wednesday MM Goals:
Can you name something that is orange?
Can you find the letter O?

Thursday MM Goals?
What is your favorite orange food to eat?
Which food do we like more?
Which food do we like less?
Count. (I didn't write the printed number form, the goal was counting and visual discrimination) 

Friday MM Goals: Review the word/letter I
I wrote short sentences about what I did last night.
Model concept of print: directionality, 1 to 1
Called students to both find the word/letter
and write the word/letter.

26.5/180 DATA WALL

Let's see how it goes...

26/180 BEST LAID PLANS... BECOME EVEN BETTER!

We are working on colors and shapes.
I found some colored cereal on sale at Target last week.
So I thought, why not use them for a sorting activity during groups.

BEFORE: My vision...
Students would sort the cereal by color.
Students will take out the green ones (last week's color)
Students will count how many greens ones they had.
Students will illustrate.

I envisioned students counting the green ones.
I envisioned drawing circles to match that number.

DURING: My realization...
1.  Students really just wanted to eat the cereal.
2.  Too many steps for an attention span of a few minutes.
3.  How can I make this meaningful data for me and appropriate for them?

REVISION:
Students get some cereal.
Students put cereal on paper.
Students draw a circle (a skill we have been practicing) around each cereal.
Students count.
Students get to eat the cereal.
DONE!

AFTER:
I got a chance to make meaningful observations in:
fine motor skills
number knowledge
1 to 1 correspondence
initiative & following directions

25/180 MAKING SENSE

Day 25
Week 5
Things are making sense now.
It always takes me a little time to find my way each year.
Even if I stay in the same grade level,
I still need time to get to know who the kids in my class are...
where they come from,
what their needs are,
what their strengths are,
how to reach them,
and how they interact with each other as a whole.

I can honestly say, I love them all!
How can you not... they are 3-4!
Such unique characters,
that make me laugh and shake my head at the same time.

Today was a great day!
-I got to read, not one, but 2 stories today... and almost uninterrupted, (almost!)
-They got excited when I wrote during morning circle!
-Our playhouse arrived in 2 huge, and entertaining boxes!
-Most of the students recognized the first letter in their name without prompting!
-Got instant approval for a field trip to the pumpkin farm next month!
-Found a sound picture to go with my letter Mm (thanks to Julian's suggestion)
-Nicolas came in for lunch!
-Students know what O looks like and some even what it sounds like!
-Sand Table and Water Table...
-And I got to observe children play, learn, talk, negotiate, share, problem solve, cry, comfort, create, build, read, write, dance, sing, count, and laugh!

I have 155 more days! Lets see where we can go!

Boxes are the best toys! Imagine the possibilities!

Such a wonderful experience for city kids!

No french fries were hurt. The counter guy gave me a new box!

A little visual cue for the letter Oo!

24/180 DATA WALL CONTINUES...

I have noticed that there have been a lot of Data Wall lamination this week.
The deadline is for every classroom to have a Data Wall visible by Friday.
The teacher with the most creative Data Wall will get a prize.
The prize is time!
I think the winner gets 30 free minutes, duty free.

The data on the Data Wall requirements:

• Show data from DIBELS assessment.
• Show the composite score (color) of students.
• Show a separate visual with data disaggregated by assessments.
• Make it kid friendly.

One of my colleagues created this Data Wall in her Kindergarten classroom:

I thought it was creative! 

By J. Ramos

We don't have to assess our 3-4 year olds with district literacy assessments, so we selected our own criteria (based on Pre-K Foundation Standards) for our Data Wall. 

Here are the 6 areas we are measuring and displaying for ETK.  

We wanted to base it on Social-Emotional along with Literacy.

What do you think?

23/180 MANIC MONDAY...

Goal for this week...
Complete a kid friendly/parent friendly, useful data wall.
We threw some ideas out there and I will post once it's completed.

After realizing, that we really only "have" the attention of the kids until lunch,
They are 3-4... (Picture that in your head and you'll get it!)
I decided it was best to keep things simple and predictable.
Young children like the predictability,
and I have to keep reminding myself less is more.
So I think I have finally figured out a system to our small group instruction/centers.
Keep them steady and predictable.
Tuesday is always paint day.
Fridays we will always do some cooking activity.
Thursday is literacy game day.
Thursday is math journals.
Friday is writing journals.
And so on...
And everyday, if possible, I will read them a great story and model writing through  Daily News.
I love writing to and with students!

And of course they also get to learn through self selected play 3-4 hours a day.

Dramatic play and construction center where cleaning up means to be able to sort and classify!

Thank you Donorschoose for the charging station... and tablets too!

GROWING PAINS

Team teaching is always a little bit tricky.

When you are the only adult in the classroom pretty much everything you do is up to you.

When you are working with other adults,

it's not all about you anymore.

This year I am teaching an ETK collaboration class.

1/3 of the students are special needs.

I team with a special education teacher.

And we each get a full time teaching assistant.

Our TA's have been in the preschool program for the past 5 years.

They have worked with the same two teachers for 5 years.

The first month or so has been a getting to know each other period.

But slowly we are learning more and more about each other.

After 29 years, you're are use to doing things your way.
You can't when you teach. Compromise is the important. 

I have discovered that each of us have our strengths and challenges.

Four adults with four very different personalities.

But happily, things are coming along.

My team partner and I are a good balance.

We are learning as we go and he is so flexible when I want to try new things!

My TA's are smart, creative, competent, and hardworking.

And they take initiative and can create great bulletin boards. (See below)

I guess I don't have to do everything now.

There are four of us.

 Learning what letters look like...

 Practicing cutting and assessing if students have 1 to 1 correspondence...

*Not the two charts were not mine contributions. LOL!

Our Latino Heritage Contribution... We will be adding on to it.

WRITE ON!

I have been learning to take a step back this year.

3 and 4 year olds are not kindergarteners.

I love writing,

and I love teaching writing.

My goal is to have them all in writing workshop by the end of the year! 

For now, baby steps.

Instead of daily writing workshop,
we will have a writing workshop center each Friday.
We need to concentrate on oral language, fine motor skills,
and drawing lines and shapes.

Second trimester, I will increase it to 2 days a week.

Even from our first "writing workshop" center 9 days ago,
I have seen improvement.

Growth in drawing.

Growth in holding a pencil.

Growth in language.

I love writing!

I have always LOVED writing in front of the class.

I get to model the entire process of writing.

And the kids get to know me a little better with each writing.

True story! I always share narratives first.
I introduced the word/letter I a week ago. 

Nothing major, just pointed it from time to time.

Today, I intentionally used the word I in my writing.

Then I had them find the word I.

Guess what word came up in writing workshop time unprompted?!

 

I always take dictation as told. It will provide an authentic record of my students' oral language and English Language development.  Many of my students already have speech and language IEPs, so taking dictation will provide me with rich data to plan my instruction.  I decided to use ... as a way to remind me that I prompted for more and if additional information was shared.

I love writing!