We began our Mo Willems Study for the month of April. We started with The Pigeon Finds a Hot Dog. Mo Willems uses interesting techniques in his illustrations that many artists don’t use. We focused on his use of speech bubbles and the text size. Tiny words for a small whisper voice and HUGE words for a character that is YELLING! The students drew their own Mo Willems Pigeon and added a speech bubble with their own text. We can’t wait for our next Mo Willems book!
What sound does the letter s make? What sound does the letter h make? Did you know it makes a whole new sound when they buddy up together in a word? We learned about our first digraph in K Prep today…sh. We read the book, Shark in the Park, and identified all the words that started with sh. We created the list of words from the book and came up with many more on our own. We also practiced writing the digraph independently and together in our class book. After group was complete, we worked independently to identify which pictures began with sh and which did not. The students picked up so quickly on this there will be more digraph work in our future for sure! Way to go K Prep!
I was so proud of these K Prep students. They completed their sight word study work neatly and independently…they are truly on their way to being independent Kindergarteners! It takes strong fine motor muscles to be able to complete this activity so neatly, way to go!
Phonics involves the relationship between sounds and their spellings. The goal of phonics instruction is to teach students the most common sound-spelling relationships so that they can decode, or sound out, words. This decoding ability is a crucial element in reading success. The first step in phonics study is to be able to identify the sound(s) each letter can make. As we begin to “read” our letter Jj books, we are also taking part in correctly orienting books for reading and turning pages one at a time. Children also begin to demonstrate an understanding that print carries meaning. All of these are the first steps in the process of early reading.
We are starting on out very first ARTSHOW projects for the year. It was important to talk about art and how it is unique and special to you and your talents.
One of our favorite classroom books, all about creating and seeing beautiful things in what we can make!
Ms. Andrea planned a fun art project with paint!
We were able to choose a color and makes lots of dots on the page.
Fold it over, smooth it out, and what do you see?
“It’s wings!!!”
We read the book, Goldilocks and the Three Bears, during reading and writing workshop this week. Our focus was learning about where the story took place, or the setting. We discovered that this story took place in the habitat that we have been studying this month, the forest! After reading it together, we used picture cards to retell the story, step by step. After retelling the story, we created an illustration of the setting. The students have been learning about what good illustrators do and how to create a more interesting picture by adding details, colors and words. They participated in their first Author’s Chair experience. Author’s chair is a chance for students to share their work with the class. They did an amazing job. We have quite a few budding illustrators!
We will be focusing on retelling for the remainder of the month, during our reading workshops. This is a great thing to do with your child after reading each day. A simple retell (or what happened at the beginning, middle and end) of the story, helps build comprehension and teaches our children to become active readers.
Children become readers on the laps of their parents!
We became authors and illustrators today during small groups. The students came up with a sentence and illustration that they would add to I Jump (our reading group book for the week) if we were the authors and illustrators. The students learned that the text must match the illustration and that the dot at the end of each sentence is called a period!
Before your child begins to read, he/she is learning about the way letters and sounds work together to form words. Phonemic awareness and phonics are the first steps a child makes in their journey to becoming readers. By listening to and playing around with the sounds in language, your child is building an important foundation for reading. These playful processes are a part of phonemic awareness, which research has found to be the best predictor of reading success in young children.
If your child has phonemic awareness, he or she understands that words are made up of sounds (phonemes) and that those sounds can be grouped together, moved, and changed. Throughout the day there are many opportunities to point out words that begin or end with the same sound. Just making your child aware of sounds in words is one of the first steps in reading. Click on the first picture below for an online game called Dog’s Letter Pit that your child can play to practice building phonemic awareness. Have fun!
Creative Tots has specialized in the private education of both toddlers and preschool age children for over 15 years. We began in the heart of Madeira and now also have a new Mason location. We are specifically designed to focus on early childhood development for children ages 18 months to 5 years.
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