136/180 FRIDAY ON THURSDAY

César Chávez

César Chávez was a very good man.

He helped the workers across the land.

Against bad things, he took a stand.

Let's all work together, hand in hand.

Si, se puede! Yes, we can!

It's been challenging breaking down huge concepts for my ETK kids. I want to inform and expose them to history and important events and people. But like Martin Luther King, Jr., just how much and how to make it age appropriate. 

I found this poem a few years ago and really liked the rhythm of the chant. My ETK kids love it too! I focused on the fact that he helped make life better for farm workers. What talked about who farm workers are and where our produce comes from. The conditions they had to live under and how Cesar tried to make things better for them. That was pretty much it for this stage.

I do miss role playing and dramatizing the events of his life, the reason why we boycotted grapes, the hunger strikes, and such, but they will go into that later when they are ready. I did tell them that the phrase Si se puede was not his, but Dolores Huerta's. Hope they remember that one!

In celebration of Cesar Chavez Day tomorrow, we made a friendship salad.

I asked each family to bring one fruit and one vegetable to share.
We had talked about where produce comes from (market was a popular answer initially).
But now they know that there are hardworking people that have to harvest the crops for us.
We celebrate them too!

SNAPSHOTS FROM OUR CLASS TODAY...

There are different ways of knowing.
We are assessing students for number sense 0-10.
We asked them to draw the amount of circles a specific number represents.
I noticed some kids had difficulty with the paper/pencil task.
So today I asked them to SHOW me what numbers means.
V missed 5 on her paper, but she knew how to count out and show me 5.
#Multiplemeasures #ShowandTell #Differentwaysofknowing

Our seeds are sprouting!

The letter that is the most challenging to connect.
#talentedTAs 

We have this popular ART Center.
It's a real ART center.
Papers, scraps, scissors, markers, glue, crayons, pencils, tape
My TA put up this wonderful bulletin board to show students the many possibilities out there!
#ArtMatters

More art activities...

And a pop of color!

Can you guess our focus word.
Just a quick 5 minute shared reading lesson.

I still have a few students that are not able to distinguish between a letter and #.
Quick activity to check and reinforce the difference.

All artist need a gallery to display their work!

#proudartists #proudteacher

135/180 #BESTSCHOOLDAY!

Donorschoose has a BESTSCHOOLDAY every year.

On that day, donations are matched by funders.

I don't want my young students on the computer all day,

But I do want them to be exposed to how to use a computer

and have access to all that technology can offer.

So today, thanks to my wonderful, generous, and kind friends (teacher pals, former students, and family friends), my students will have a chromebook center during rotations! They can work with ABC Mouse or Starfall and interact with wonderful education programs! How cool is that? 

Pretty cool!

#Onegratefulteacher #Bestschoolday

 Another reason why this was the BESTSCHOOLDAY was because I was so excited to see all my students make gains in their alphabet knowledge! ETK benchmark is to know 1/2 of the letters of the alphabet. 74% of my students who are going to TK or K have reached that mark and beyond! 45 more days to help the other 26% move as far as they can before the end of the year!

 More engineering designs on the yard! I need to write a project to get more of these magnetic shapes. They are incredible!

134/180 PD TUESDAY

Today's PD was on the Gifted Child.

So glad we are adding other areas of giftedness besides intellectual.

We are all gifted in some way.

Would love to take Dr. Kaplan's work and somehow make it work in ETK.

#goals4nextyear #alwaysplanning #lifelonglearner #Year30

133/180 Obsession with Early Literacy

As an early literacy educator, I have different goals in mind as I work with each student depending on where they are at in their literacy/writing development. Although I have these goals in mind, it is the student that leads me to where I need to go. 

It's an exciting time of the year. So many of my ETK students are making connections. It's what teachers look forward to... witnessing those wonderful connections as they happen!

Today I wanted to share observations from E's journaling.

I'm trying to build E's confidence in his ability to write.

He knows all his letters and many of his sounds.

As he writes, he seeks confirmation.

He has good foundational skills in concept of print and writes going left to right.

I try to model saying your sentence as you write.

I had casually introduced periods during shared writing time today.

I wanted to see if he would remember. He did!

What I love most about this part of the process is that he is monitoring his reading.
When I ask him to reread his sentence, he does going left to right.
But he stops because what he "reads" doesn't match the print!
I love it, because he know it doesn't fit and stops himself.
Once he has spacing, it will make sense!
I'm in no hurry to rush that. It will come when he is ready.

Love watching my students make sense of how literacy works!

132/180 Self Portraits in Mixed Media

Watercolors

Tempura Paint

Oil Pastels

Yarn & Glue

131/180 THINGS WE LIKE...

First, in circle, we shared things we like orally.

Next, I charted things that students liked.

Yesterday, I wrote students' sentences and had them match or order them before reading them.

Today, I asked them to illustrate and write about things they like.

#Emergentwriters #mypassion #onourway #ETK

Can you read this?  (I like Disneyland)
I tell students to skip and move on if they don't know the sound/letter.
I haven't formally taught spacing between words or punctuation.
I want them to be confident writers first!

She used the room to find the word like!

I like robots!

Can you use the illustrations to figure out the meaning?
Return sweep is challenging for young writers.
I like Mickey Mouse.

Love it!
He read his sentence from left to right too!

Different levels of writing development,

but all with so much information about the writer!

ENJOY... these moments make my heart sing!

130/180 Transitions to Kindergarten

We're down to 50 days.

All, but 4 of my students will be going to kindergarten this fall.

Time to slowly introduce some kinder skills and routines.

First up, concept of print.

Jesus recently learned how to write his name!
So proud of him! He's been making all kinds of letter connections.
And I can finally understand what he is saying sometimes!
He can match print and knows to start left to right.
#comealongway #goJesus!

I usually do that cutting of their sentences, but I thought,
why not see if some of them could cut between words themselves!
#surprisediscoveries #sisepuede!

 Y can match words I printed on her paper.

She can go left to right, and has 1 to 1.

If you are wondering, her mommy has 3 babies in her belly.

She is 1/3 of my triplets!

D is a beginning reader. I love how he plays with print.

Another one writes his name!
23 down, 2 to go!

129/180 A DAY IN THE LIFE OF ETK...

Today, foreground...

Making observations of our new plants... MINT

Strawberries and basil...

Setting up our garden!

New high frequency word and what new would like to plant...

Let's match!

128/180 #theARTSmatter_1

So this happened last week.
A budget was proposed.
I grew up on PBS.
I learned English watching Sesame Street and The Electric Company.
I am a patron of the arts.

So this week's entries will focus on the arts.
It's that important.

I went to The Metropolitan Museum of Art for the first time while traveling to NYC to visit my sister Lisa, who was living in Manhattan at the time. It was the first time I had traveled alone to the city. Many discoveries were made during that trip, but the two everlasting ones have been the love of the theater and the love of art.

When I got back from that trip over 20 years ago. I took the excitement and passion from the Big Apple, and brought it right back into my classroom. Fast forward... Last week I was able to share some of my love with art and expression with my students. We went to the Getty Center for inspiration.

For young children, art history may not be the way to go, but I still love sharing stories of the lives of our very interesting artists, past and present. We started with Van Gogh because his painting Irises is highlighted at the Getty.  Today we looked closely at one of his self portraits again. This time, we focused on the background.

Such an interesting character. Kids love stories. Vincent had many.

Creating our backgrounds.

For sanity, and organizational purposes, I limited the color selection to 6.
The students created their own colors from those 6 without any direction from me.
Discoveries...

The call to details... Step 1 completed for today.
Tomorrow... foreground.

127/180 Happy St. Patrick's Day

Green food for a Green Day!