Tis' The Season

Tis' the season! The season for holiday themed learning, reader's theater, and nonfiction writing that is! We have a lot planned for this month...read on to find out about our busy first week of December!


Writer's Workshop
This week we began a new writing unit; Nonfiction chapter books! I am already impressed with the amount of writing that the children are producing! Filling whole pages with facts about sports, animals, games.....This is a shift in thinking, but it's also so empowering for them to be the experts teaching their audience all they know!

One of our first anchor charts to help us with the planning process.

Math
Survey says.....let's learn about collecting data and making representations! This week we continued to compare information (or data) collected from various quick survey questions about our class. We learned about morning routines like when you brush your teeth, if children are right or left handed, and if they would rather be a whale or eagle.  We took these surveys and learned how to make representation of the data using pictures numbers and words. Next up...children will create their own survey, collect data, and finally make a representation to share with the class!

Would you rather be an eagle or a whale?

"I can" statements for making representations.

Using tally marks...

Using pictures and numbers....

Comprehension
Good readers understand what they read. This week we added a new comprehension strategy to our CAFE menu board. We learned that good readers often make a picture in their mind to help them think about and understand what is happening in the story. I read the cute story Snowmen at Night without showing the class the pictures. I had them make a picture in their mind, (visualize), of the snowmen on all of their little adventures. Then we compared their images with the actual illustrations. This would work really well with a read aloud chapter book at home too! When children can visualize what is happening in a story it serves as a tool to understanding and remembering important events and actions. After modeling this strategy we added it to our menu!

Adding "make a picture" to our comprehension strategy menu boards.

Kwanzaa

One of the first December holidays we learned about was Kwanzaa. We read a story called Lil' Rabbits Kwanzaa and learned how Rabbit went on a search for the perfect Kawadi or gifts for his Granna Rabbit. We learned that Kwanzaa is represented by principles such as unity, creativity, and self determination! We even made mats at the art center to represent the colors of Kwanzaa.

Hope you enjoyed learning what we learned!