Literacy Stations

We have added a new part to Reader's Workshop: Literacy Stations! At this age it is hard for students to read independently for more than 15-20 minutes. To extend the time students are reading, we implemented Literacy Stations. Literacy Stations are centers that focus on reading. Some of the Literacy Stations that we are participating in right now are reading genre books(ex. Dr. Suess books, Arthur books, etc.), retelling "Star" books, retelling nursery rhymes, and telephone reading (students talk into a "telephone" made out of PVC pipe which allows them to hear themselves read).

Meet Chet!

This year, we are going on a blogging adventure around the world with a little help from our new friend Chet! We are so excited because our classroom is one of the lucky rooms that is home to the new traveling bear for our school.
Are you wondering how Chet is going to get to travel the world? He gets to go with you! If you are going on vacation and would like to take Chet with you, he will pack his bag and be ready for an adventure. The only catch is that you will have to share your adventure with Chet with our class. You can take pictures, write a story, draw a picture - anything you can think of to share with us the adventure that you and Chet went on. We will post your adventure on this blog so that other classes can see the adventure you went on, and Mrs. Phillips can read all about it.
We can't wait to see where Chet will end up this year! Is anyone up for an adventure?

Educational Websites

The following is a list of websites that contain educational games and activities:


http://pbskids.org/lions/games/

http://teacher.scholastic.com/activities/bll/

http://www.starfall.com/

http://www.little-g.com/shockwave/loading.html

http://teacher.scholastic.com/clifford1/

http://www.kidsreads.com/wordscrambles/index.asp

http://www.sesamestreet.org/home/?scrollerId=games

http://www.kidport.com/Gradek/math/mathIndex.htm

http://www.learningplanet.com/stu/kids0.asp

http://schools.u-46.org/index.pl?id=13503

Star Books

You may have noticed your Kindergartener talking about mischeiveous monkies, an ordinary peddler, billy goats, or maybe even a mean ugly troll lately. This is because we have started our "Star" book retellings and vocabulary. "Star" books are classic narrative stories that we read over and over again in the beginning of Kindergarten. Most students do not come into Kindergarten as conventional readers, so we use students' abilities to retell a story as a means of assessment. After we have read the "Star" books several times as a class, students are able to retell the stories orally and also by acting them out. We also study vocabulary words from the stories, such as ordinary, finally, disturb, etc. We encourage you to read these stories at home as well. Here is a list of the "Star" books we will be studying this year:

Caps For Sale
Three Billy Goats Gruff
Red Riding Hood
Where The Wild Things Are
Goldilocks and the Three Bears
Harry the Dirty Dog
The Gingerbread Boy
A Pocket for Corduroy
Peter's Chair
Mop Top
Frederick
The Little Red Hen
Jack and the Beanstalk
Big Al