December - January Literacy Events
Most recent listed first.

January

I need to preface this month with this forward...

My second granddaughter was born on January 22, and I spent two weekends and two weekdays with my daughter and family. During that time, I relaxed and had time for creative thinking. At St. Monica's, Pat, Michelle and I had been talking about Balanced Literacy and how it applies to Kindergarten. 

A second factor was our staff initiative. We, as a staff spent one P.D. time to organize the books in the Multipurpose Room for Guided Reading. We now had three categories of sets of books: Emergent Readers, Early Readers, and Fluent Readers. We had them arranged in tubs, the book sets in Ziploc bags. Our assistant principal, Cathy Sitko, began the task of leveling them and ordering them for level of difficulty. It is incredibly easy to go in, take a pack of books, mark the place with a clothespin with your name on it and to return them when finished.

A third factor was Pat's steady collection of books for a Home Reading Program. Michelle had one for the past four years, and Pat had done one for Grade One. This was a new practice for me, although I had previously had a Kindergarten Library in my other school.

Those three  factors - the relaxation and the book organization - prompted a "Creative Design". I figured out exactly how a Kindergarten Balanced Literacy Program could work. Sometimes ideas just need incubation time in order for them to work out. I prepared a Balanced Literacy Planning Board that incorporates activities that are developmentally appropriate for Kindergarten and allow for choice, play, and differentiated learning. The wonderful thing about collaborative work with other teachers is that you can get feedback. Pat and Michelle both added ideas to the Planning Board and it has developed from idea to implementation. We are so excited to share it with others! Balanced Literacy for Kindergarten

Secondly, I prepared an Early Reading brochure for Parents that helped give some background for the home reading program. Michelle drafted the letter and Pat and I added to it, so the Home Reading Program was ready to go. Parents and Teacher Assistants helped prepare the books by taping the edges and carding them. Michelle and I spent one day after school leveling them into 3 categories - Green (for the easiest patterns - ones that were completely predictable, with only one word change per page), Yellow (for patterns that changed part way through), and Red (for the most challenging). We each had Home Reading Pocket Charts with the children's names on them. Parent Brochure

It has been an exciting month full of "BIG IDEAS!!!" that may not have happened without the stimulus of this Telus telecollaborative project!

Summary of January Literacy Activities:

Stories:

  • Read-Alouds:

    • Teacher-Choice:

      • Polar Bears:

        • Polar Bear Finds a Friend by Hans de Beer

        • Polar Bear Ahoy by Hans de Beer

        • Polar Bear's Son

        • The Polar Bear’s Gift – Jeanne Bushey

        • Polar Bears

        • Animals in the Wild – Bear – by Mary Hoffman

        • Polar Bears – Facts, Stories, Games – Lucy Baker

        • Little Polar Bear – Hans de Beer

        • Little Polar Bear Finds a Friend – Hans de Beer

        • Ahoy There, Little Polar Bear – Hans de Beer

        • Polar Bear, Polar Bear, What Do You Hear? – Bill Martin, Jr.

        • Polar Bears – Nature’s Children – Caroline Greenland

        • The Polar Bear Son – An Inuit Tale – Lydia Dabcovich

        • Follow the Polar Bears – Sonia Black

        • Footprints in the Snow – Cynthia Benjamin

      • Penguins:

        • Penguin Pete, Ahoy by Marcus Pfister

        • Penguin Pete by Marcus Pfister

        • The Emperor Penguins by Kazue Mizubura

        • Birds – National Geographic Nature Library

        • Animals in the Wild – Penguin – Vincent Serventy

        • The Emperor’s Egg – Martin Jenkins

      • Arctic:

        • Arctic Habitat

        • Alaska Nursery Rhymes

        • Mountain Alphabet

        • Mama, Do You Love Me? Barbara M. Joosse

        • A Promise is a Promise by Robert Munsch

        • Icebergs

        • A Picture Book of Arctic Animals – Kelly Conforth

        • Houses of snow, skin and bones – Native dwellings: the Far North – Bonnie Shermie

        • Turnagain Ptarmigan! Where Did You Go? – James Guenther

        • Canadian Wild Animals – Colleayn Mastin

        • Baby Beluga – Raffi Book – Ashley Wolff

        • Arctic Alphabet – Exploring the North from A to Z – Wayne Lynch

        • Animals in Winter – Stephane Poulin

        • Life in the Polar Lands – Animals, People, Plants – Monica Byles

        • Dogteam – Gary Paulsen

        • Polar Wildlife – Kamini Khanduri

        • The Inuksuk Book – Mary Wallace

        • Danger – Icebergs! – A Let’s Read and Find-Out Science Book – Roma Gans

        • To See the Moon – Ethel Bacon

        • Habitats: Arctic Tundra – Michael H. Forman

        • The Lonely Inuksuk – students of Inuglak School, Whale Cove, Nunavut

        • Glaciers – A Let’s Read and Find-Out Science Book – Wedell V. Tangborn

           

      • Winter:

        • 50 Below Zero

      • Cinderella:

        • Cinderella Penguin or the Little Glass Flipper – Janet Perlman

        • Rough Faced Girl Rafe Martin

        • Cinderella – Barbara Karlin

        • Sootface- An Ojibwa Cinderella Story – by Roberts San Souci

        • Bubba the Cowboy Prince – A Fractured Texas Tale – Helen Ketteman

        • Dinorella – A Prehistoric Fairy Tale – Pamela Duncan Edwards

      • Germs:

        • Germs Make Me Sick – Melvin Berger

    • Child-Choice

      • MSB Waterworks - Joanna Cole

      • Sea Life

      • Arctic Life

      • Bubba the Cowboy Prince

      • The Greedy Old Fat Man - Paul Galdone

      • Northern Lullaby – Nancy White Carlstrom

      • The Ghost Eye Tree - Bill Martin, Jr. and John Archambault

      • A Beautiful Feast for a Big King Cat

      • A Promise is a Promise - Robert Munsch & Michael Kusugak

      • Thomas’ Snowsuit – Robert Munsch

      • 50 Below Zero – Robert Munsch

      • Trouble with Trolls – Jan Brett

      • Twelve Hats for Tina – Vera Trembach

      • A Beautiful Feast for a Big King Cat – by John Archambault and Bill Martin,  Jr.

      • Five Ugly Monsters – Tedd Arnold

      • Chicka Chicka Boom Boom – Bill Martin, Jr. and John Archambault

      • Miss Mary Mack – by Mary Ann Hoberman

      • Willi’s Color Book – for signing colors

      • Show and Tell – Robert Munsch

      • The Magic School Bus Inside the Earth – Joanna Cole

      • The Magic School Bus and the Electric Field Trip – Joanna Cole

  • Shared Reading:

    • Polar Bear, Polar Bear

    • Arctic Summer, Arctic Winter

    • North Pole, South Pole (a homemade book with penguins and polar bears)

    • Apples

    • Electricity

    • Northern Lights

    • Counting Penguins

    • Who Lives in the Arctic?

    • Who Lives Here?

    • Have You Seen My Cat?

    • Rainforest Colors

    • Desert Colors

    • We Love Earth (a homemade book)

    • Cinderella Dressed in Yellow

Writing:

  • Take Home Books continued

  • Journals

  • Guided Writing Sessions

Phonemic Awareness:

  • Alphabet Puppets: with sound stories and little books. The parents in my class are amazing! I asked if anyone would be available to make puppets for me... and two weeks later, I have a complete set of 26 alphabet puppets. With each puppet, I have a little story that emphasizes the sounds that letter makes and a small booklet for children to take home.

 

Date: Jan. 19

Stories:

  • Read-Aloud:

    • Teacher Choice: a.m. – Winter Animals by Stephane Poulin – used Canadian big book atlas to show them where Quebec is in Canada

    • also later Dinorella by Pamela Duncan Edwards (an excellent book for the /d/ sound!!!) which was another Cinderella version

  • Child Choice: a.m. – Clifford Grows Up

  • Shared Reading: Polar Bear, Polar Bear – Bill Martin Jr.

Writing:

  • Take-home books: Find and circle: January 22 Today we PLAYED WITH ICE

  • Writing at play: Decorating their names for our Word Wall

 

Oral Language:
  • Prayer: discussing the topic of eternity (Forever and ever)

Date: Jan. 15

Stories:

  • Read-Aloud:

    • Teacher Choice:  Habitats: Arctic Tundra by Michael H. Forman

  • Child Choice: 

    • a.m.: Fun in the Snow

    • p.m. – A Promise is a Promise by Robert Munsch & Michael Kusagak

  • Shared Reading: Weather

  • Independent Readers: Cinderella Dressed in Yellow

Phonemic Awareness: 

  • Noted the /y/ sound in Yellow and whole group practise for /y/ellow (to help the one or two children who still say “lello”)

Writing:

  • Journal: PENGUIN (write word and show me in your drawing what you know about Penguins)

  • Take-home books: Find and circle: Monday January 15 I need TO BAKE PUMPKIN STUFF

Oral Language:

  • Prayer: We discussed “but deliver us from evil” today. I asked if anyone knew what evil was and the children brought up stealing, killing, guns, witches, vampires, and so on. The morning class brought up “devil” so we had an excellent discussion about good/bad; the cartoon depicting the angel on one shoulder and the devil on the other; and about choices. I also told them the Bible story about how Jesus said ‘NO” to the devil, and we can do the same to bad things – we can just say NO!

  • Pumpkin Activity: We have almost finished off the pumpkins (YEAH!!!). Today we peeled a couple of the biggest ones and ground it with a food processor. We measured out 2 cups for Ziploc bags and children took them home to bake something using the pumpkin. Their task is to bring it in tomorrow for a pumpkin tasting time… We had a difficult time knowing what to call the pumpkin food-part. Words like mush, meat, stuff, pieces, etc. floated around, but it was an interesting dilemma. I finally heard the words, “We never did this at my other school…” I thought I was like Ms. Frizzle and now I know for sure!!! “We never had to cut up so much pumpkin at my other school…,” said Colleen.

 

Date: Jan. 12

Stories:

  • Read-Aloud:

    • Teacher Choice: A Promise is a Promise by Robert Munsch

    • Child Choice:

      • a.m. – Ahoy There, Little Polar Bear by Hans de Beer

      • p.m. – The Greedy Old Man by Paul Galdone –

  • Shared Reading: The Northern Lights

  • Independent Readers:

    • Reviewed Counting Penguins

    • Who Lives in the Arctic?

    • Arctic Winter Arctic Summer

    • Completed Go, Penguins, Go! to take home today to save in their KEEP BOX

 Writing:

  • Take-home books: Find and circle: Friday, January 12 Today we: OPENED OUR PUMPKINS

  • Write-Aloud: St. Brendan morning kindergarten wrote us a letter and today we responded. I lay the original letter down on the floor beside the new paper pad, so that I could read the letter section by section and model our responding letter to it. They had asked us several questions, so we needed to talk about the reciprocal role of question-answer, question-answer. After we answered one of their questions, we asked them a question. In this letter, we wrote about our tarantula, Pearl, who has just died. The children brought up the need to have a funeral, and to get a new tarantula. (Looks like we’ll be having spiders interspersed into the Arctic study. I have to keep reminding myself that it is absolutely appropriate to have more than one interest at a time.

  • Writing at play: labeling artwork

Oral Language:

  • Story of the Week: The three of us kindergarten teachers collaborate to make sure we have any upcoming notices to parents included in the bottom half of the page. The children tell us what to write in the top half about “What happened this week in kindergarten?”

  • Large Group Meeting Discussion: Clean-up was dysfunctional today, so I called a meeting to focus their attention to the task.

  • Pumpkin Carving: I have to chuckle to myself as we open, clean and carve these 7 huge pumpkins that we have left in our classroom. I had the video camera turned on for our Pumpkin Documentary. Children do not feel the “wrong-ness” of doing Pumpkins in January. A few today commented that they had forgotten to bring theirs…  To them, October and Halloween could either just have happened, or it could be around the corner, or it’s just fine to do these activities just “any old time”. We put ourselves inside the box too much, maybe? Do we think about the image we are giving off, or designing learning experiences for things that really interest the children?

  • For our Lord's Prayer, we added in the words "And lead us not into temptation." We had a good discussion about what temptation means, and how Jesus was tempted by Satan. So we too should say "NO!" to things that are wrong.

Phonemic Awareness: 

  • When we were looking at the Arctic Winter, Arctic Summer book, I asked them to tell me how they knew which word was Arctic, which was Winter, which was Summer. I wanted to introduce the idea that sometimes letters do not make sounds like their names. Like W and /oowuh/ sound that it makes. 

  • I have also noticed that some children who are reading by sight do not always have the phonemic sounds that go with the letters. That surprises me some. There’s a whole new world of extra strategies just lying in wait for these little bright stars….

Date: Jan. 11

Reading:

  • Read-Aloud:

    • Teacher Choice:

      • a.m. - Emperor Penguins

      • p.m. - Penguin Pete's New Friends by Marcus Pfister

    • Child Choice:

      • a.m. - Penguin Pete's New Friends by Marcus Pfister

      • p.m. - A Dolphin is not a Fish (One of the books unread yet from the Independent Reading tub.)

  • Shared Reading:

    • Arctic Winter, Arctic Summer - small book

    • Penguin Poem - enlarged on wall, and duplicated for each child for their Poetry Binder

  • Independent Reading:

    • Reviewed Independent readers: Counting Penguins, Who Lives in the Arctic?

Writing:

  • Take-Home Books: Circle: Thursday, January 11. Ask me about: THE PENGUIN

Oral Language:

  • Attendance: Tell me your favorite color

  • Penguin from WEM -in-school field trip. Terry from WEM brought in a black-footed penguin for an informational sharing. She gave some coaching first, about how to stay quiet so as not to frighten the bird, and about her expectations about raising hands before talking. (Doesn't this always need to be reinforced? It's such a school culture/behavior that is unnatural to children. This first year of school is such an acclimatization...) Then Terry gave them some good information is a style that was interactive, to keep the children engaged. She found out what they knew first, and then built on that knowledge. The children were thrilled, and are demonstrating an improving skill of formulating questions. 

  • p.m. - In our gathering time, Colleen told me that she had found Slimy the Snail at the library and that she had borrowed it. This was such a popular book in November/December. Then she said, "I sometimes find Paul Galdone books there too! And I take them out." It's when I hear comments like that, I am so glad I'm a teacher. It's so gratifying to see that children have incorporated their school experience into their larger life.

  • Lord's Prayer - the new line? "As we forgive others who trespass against us." Again I talked about "trespasses" - being wrong choices, mistakes, or accidents. I used a role-playing drama to coach the children on the "Sorry; That's Okay" social routine and gave the class a chance to practice it in partners. I also brought in here the two occasions when it is not okay to brush off wrongful behaviors, that sometimes you need to tell others. One time is for a bully, the other time is when someone is hurting you in your 'privates'. It is such a fine-line between being a forgiving and loving person who accepts the faults of others, to being a responsible person to monitor other's behavior to you. It's a social skill that continues for our entire lives, don't you think?

  • We only had time in the afternoon to practise a read-through of the Cinderella Chant.

  • For the morning, we went to the Gym to practice "waddling". I had some yarn that we tied around the children's ankles, so they could experience how penguins have a tough time walking, and how they waddle. They tried sliding on the floor like the penguins slide, but were pretty much unsuccessful with their "back flippers". When we snipped the yarn at the end of class, they were so joyful to be free, that they ran and pranced, kicking and stretching their legs. Hopefully this full body experience will help integrate knowledge about penguins - multiple intelligences. It was interesting to note that there were about 5 children who kept snapping the yarn - they could not transfer their walking skills to feet alone - they were still using knee action.

Date: Jan. 10

Reading:

  • Read-Aloud:

    • Teacher Choice: 

      • a.m. – Animals in the Wild : PENGUINS by Vincent Serventy

      • p.m. – The Emperor Penguins by Kazue Mizumura

I asked the children to tell me what type of book each was. “Penguins…” was the first and popular reply. I prompted with “Is it a story book?” and they replied, “No, it’s an information book!” We spent a lot of time on the first couple of pages where it talked about the penguins coming from the Antarctic. I have a small stuffed globe that I brought out and we talked about the concepts of top of the world, bottom of the world, equator, North and South Pole, Arctic and Antarctic. To help them remember Antarctic, I used a small joke (kids love humor so much) about it being just like Uncle Arctic or Antarctic, and that they must be related. We even stretched the learning to talk about how the earth rotates around the sun, and that the middle of the earth is closest to the sun, and the poles are the furthest from the sun and that’s why they are always colder than the rest of the world. The afternoon class was so interested that they even understood how Edmonton was in the day when it was facing the sun and at night when it was away from the sun. It was an unexpected bonus, this rich discussion!

  • Child Choice: 

    • a.m. – The Mitten by Jan Brett

    • p.m. – The Hat by Jan Brett

  •  Independent Readers: 

    • Reviewed Counting Penguins; introduced Who Lives in the Arctic?

    • Independent Reading: Introduced a little photocopied book called Go Penguins Go! The text is so simple, focusing on prepositions:

Go, penguins, go!
Penguins go up.
Penguins go down.
Penguins go in.
Penguins go out.
Penguins go over.
Penguins go around.
Go, penguins, go!

This will be another easy pattern to modify for other animals!

Phonemic Awareness: 

  • Before dismissal today, the children needed to tell me ten words that started with the /p/ sound.

Writing: 

  • Making sure their name is on their Penguin books.

  • Take-home books: Find and circle: Wednesday, January 10. Tomorrow is: THE PENGUIN

  • Writing at play: labeling artwork

Oral Language:

  • Cinderella Chant by Cochrane & Gallagher. The morning class has learned two pages so far, while the afternoon class just began. An interesting follow-up for the morning learning session happened because of one boy stating that “We have to say this a hundred times?” I said, yes, for learning some things, you need to practice it many, many times. I stopped the practise to read the book The Name of the Tree by Celia Barker Lottridge. It’s about the only way to remember the name of the tree was through repetition, repetition, repetition…

January 9

Reading:

  • Read-Aloud Stories:

    • Teacher-Choice: Penguin Pete: Ship Ahoy! by Marcus Pfister

    • Child-Choice: 

      • a.m. - Rough-Faced Girl by Rafe M...

      • p.m. - Willi's Color Book (this is a home-made signing book that belongs to Willi. Kyle selected this book, because he cares about Willi so much...)

  • Shared Reading: 

    • Counting Penguins - Scholastic

  • Independent Reading: 

    • Counting Penguins; and child browsing during choice time. 

Writing:

  • Take-Home Books: Tuesday, January 9 MELISSA IS HERE (Our new Grant MacEwan ECD student)

Phonemic Awareness: 

  • Played /p/ game with small group today. I have a bag of 50 or so pictures and small items that start with particular sounds. We began easy with each child selecting one item from the pile in the middle and naming the item, exaggerating the initial /p/ sound. The first round seemed to go cautiously, but soon the pace and enthusiasm picked up, with Matthew having fun looking for something to have for dessert after his /p/izza!

  • Decided to play large group game with the /p/ sounds too. I took 10 things out of the bag - randomly - keeping the items/pictures hidden. The class had to try and guess what the items were and great celebration was made when someone got one right! This turned out to be great fun and very educational too, because some children were guessing sounds other than the /p/ initial sound, but soon began to discern the game. It was calling on memory and language skills rather than just recognition. I will definitely play this game again. I'll need to try and think of a name for it...

Oral Language:

  • We had Melissa starting today and I am trying to lead the children into asking appropriate questions to develop curiosity and interview skills. I encouraged them to use words like Why, Where, How, What, etc. to find out what they wanted to know or to confirm their guesses of why she was in our class. It always seems to be such a challenge to help children understand "question". Isn't it typical when someone visiting your class says, "Does anyone have any questions?" and several raise their hands. When called upon, they all start with "I had a dog like that..." etc.

  • Austin, a new student, started in the afternoon, and we had a lot of oral language about that. Welcoming in is a social skill that always needs to be practiced.

  • We are learning the Lord's Prayer and I have a small picture book that I use. I like to help the children understand the intent behind each line of the prayer. Today our line was, "Give us this day our daily bread." I explained that we don't just want God to give us bread... that bread is a metaphor for everything that we need. I asked them to think of what else we need to live. Answers started out with food (as always) - fruit, milk, carrots, etc., and then I closed off the food section and asked them to think beyond... "What else do you need to live?" Answers began to diverge, which is exactly what I wanted, to include families, trees ("We would die without trees..."), air, sun, Milky Way, toys, house, books, and so on. It was a very satisfying discussion!

  • The Morning Class loves tough challenges, so after they finished their snack they came to the carpet to join in my clap, slap, clap, slap pattern. I didn't tell them why I was doing it, or why I wanted them to join in, and their curiousity was "fired up" by the time the last child joined us. I waited until everyone was in sync with the pattern, and I quit to begin reading the rap of "Cinderella Chant". They listened enthralled while my voice kept to the beat they were providing me. After, we learned the first page of 8 lines, and promised to add a new page to the repertoire every day.

  • Pumpkin Documentary... continued. The morning class had the task of finding a way to show how pumpkins change colors, and then describe  a pumpkin patch. They found the Pumpkin books for research and the appropriate pictures. The "Producer and Directors" assumed they would tell about the research, but I asked them to find the "Talker" the Narrator for these scenes. They brought Andrew and coached him on what to say about each section. We needed a rehearsal, then called for "Quiet on the Set", and "Lights, Action, Camera". It never fails that as soon as we do this that the "talker" forgets what to say. So it seems so very unrehearsed, and as cute as can be. The parents will just love it. I believe that children in role through drama can reach beyond what they would normally be interested or capable of. The afternoon class had to video the pumpkin patch and explain that the pumpkins were connected with vines and that before you could pick them, the vines had to be cut. I had saved the stuffed pumpkins that we had painted in October (using only red and yellow paint - which ended up being "ketchup" and "mustard" paint). These had been displayed with vine like green twisted paper to connect them all.  I knew this would be a perfect prop for this scene and it seems unbelievable now, in retrospect, how long it took to get to this scene.

     

Date: Jan. 8

Reading:

  • Read-Aloud:

    • Teacher Choice: Cinderella Penguin

    • Child Choice:

      • a.m. – Magic School Bus Inside the Earth by Joanna Cole

      • p.m. – The Greedy Old Man by Paul Galdone – Kevin made a special request for this book, so I retrieved it from the Author Shelf where it has been filed before Christmas.

  • Shared Reading:

    • Independent Readers: Merry Christmas, Have You Seen Our Reindeer?

  • Independent Reading:

    • I asked the afternoon children if they would help me find all of the Christmas books and take them of our display shelf, so that we could put our new books up in preparation for Arctic/Winter Animals. I had several assistants, who independently selected the appropriate books to remove them from the shelf. When I began to find the new books, several children came over to help as well. We brought out the “winter” books from my Seasons section, then went to the “Animals” to find all of the polar bears and other winter animals. Next we went to my Sea section to pull out the seals and beluga whales. Finally, we went to the Bird section for the penguin books. Initially, I went from book to book to make the choices myself, but soon, my eager helpers were assessing each book on their own, with a quick check from me to see if it was appropriate. For example, did we need the Brown Bears books when we would be concentrating more on Polar Bears… I was very impressed. I loved it when Vincent called out to everyone, “Hey guys, you want to come and read our new Penguin books?” He just demonstrated to me again, his love of story!

Writing:

  • Take-home books: Find and circle: Monday, January 8; writing: HAPPY NEW YEAR!

  • Writing at play: labeling artwork

 Oral Language:

  • Greeting: “Happy New Year!” I met children at the door and extended them a “Happy New Year” greeting. Some children did not respond with the expected echo response, so I coached them on what to do, and gave them a chance to practice it…

  • Attendance: The children took turns telling about their holiday.

  • Large Group Meeting Discussion:

    • In January, I always ask the children to tell me what they want to learn for the remainder of the year. I find it gives them ownership of their learning. So, today, I reminded them that we needed to finish our Pumpkin Documentary Video this week, so that we could move on to other things. We also would be looking at penguins in preparation of a in-school visit by a penguin from WEM.

    • Focus of Future Learning:  We discussed options for future topics to study. I suggested a couple of possible directions we could go, like dinosaurs, or earth study with rocks and volcanoes, or Arctic/animals in winter. I asked if they could suggest other topics that might be of interest, and they added Sea Life, Body, and Space. They were such good choices, so we took a visual survey of who was interested in each topic. Between both classes, the results showed a well-rounded interest in all of the topics. Dinosaurs – 21 votes, Earth/Rocks – 24 votes, Arctic/Winter Animals – 29 votes, Sea Life – 30, Body – 24, and Space 26. We couldn’t eliminate any choices, really, so we decided in the afternoon how we could work them all in. We would start with Arctic/Winter Animals, then move into the Beluga whales and seals which would lead into Sea Life. We could go from there to prehistoric sea life and the evolution of dinosaurs. The bones could lead into body, and the dinosaur eggs would lead into the Insects (which I eliminated from the choices because I knew we would be discussing this in the spring). Space may be left until the end of the year, or it may emerge with the dinosaur extinction theory of the impact of a huge meteorite. The afternoon class was adamant that we should do them all. If that’s the case, we have our work cut out for us!

  • Small Group Meetings: I met with the Producer and Directors of each class to review which portions of the video had already been filmed and which sections needed to be completed. Tomorrow we start “shooting” again…

December

December Stories:

  • How the Grinch Stole Christmas – Dr. Seuss

  • What Made the Snowman Smile?  -Grand-dreams

  • Wake Up Santa Claus  - Marcus Pfister

  • The First Christmas – Tomie de Paola

  • The Night Before Christmas – Clement Moore

  • Let Us Go To Bethlehem – Dorothy Van Woerke

  • The First Christmas – John Patience

  • We Wish You a Merry Christmas – Tracey Pearson

  • Arthur’s Christmas – Marc Brown

  • Clifford’s First Christmas – Norman Bridwell

  • Jingle Bells – Maryann Kovalski

  • Jingle Bells – Golden Book

  • One Special Star – Anita McGadzean

  • A 1-2-3 Christmas – Diane Stortz

  • The Children’s ABC Christmas – Patricia

  • Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer – Golden Book

  • My Christmas Angel – Sarah Reid

  • Santa’s Favorite Story – Hisako Aoki

  • Hurry Home, Grandma – Arielle North Olson

  • Counting on Angels – Brenda Ward

  • The Night of the Shepherds – Juliana Quaglini

  • Christmas Trolls – Jan Brett

  • The Berenstain Bear’s Christmas – Stan & Jan Berenstain

  • The Polar Express – Christ Van Allsburg

  • The Christmas Miracle of Jonathan Toomey – Susan Wojciechowski

  • This is the Star – Joyce Dunbar

  • Merry Christmas, Mom and Dad – Mercer Mayer

  • Clifford’s Christmas – Norman Bridwell

  • The Wild Christmas Reindeer – Jan Brett

  • Mary’s Baby – Jane Chapman

  • The Crippled Lamb – Max Lucado

  • A Child was Born – Grace Maccarone

  • The Stable Where Jesus Was Born – Rhonda Gowler Greene

  • The Mitten – Jan Brett

  • The Hat – Jan Brett

December seemed to fly by with all of the Christmas activities. We had a celebration every Monday for advent; we practiced songs for our Kindergarten Christmas Share (mini-concert), our guest music teacher, David Watts was in; and we exchanged classes for one week's time. Most of the literacy was in listening to stories, and oral language in learning the words to the songs we practiced.  One of the favorite's  was "We Fish You a Hairy Kiss Moose..." - children just love the word play!

Every December, I focus on the reindeer/caribou topic. I found out a few years ago that reindeer are a small tribe of the caribou family and is located only in Europe, unless being farmed in our North. But the wild reindeer? The kind that are supposed to be up at the North Pole? Those would be our Caribou! We have 5 major herds in Canada, and they are so unique and interesting. As I help the children to learn these concepts, they begin to discriminate between accurately drawn illustrations (like Jan Brett's Wild Christmas Reindeer) and those of a fanciful deer (like in Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer).  I created an independent reader based on the pattern of "Have You Seen My Cat?", entitled, "Have You Seen Our Caribou?"