Kindergarten Construction/Engineering and Classroom Happenings

In the middle of each table is a lazy susan with all of the students' materials. In the center there are 3 containers: pencils, scissors, and glue sticks. Along the edges are jars of crayons organized by color. I think that by organizing the materials this way, the students are much more respectful toward the materials and intentional with their color choices. 

Recently, the students kept commenting about how different the colors the crayons were--for instance, a blue crayon might actually look more purple when they used it to color or a what looked like a green crayon colored yellow. This led me to set up exploring colors at our We Wonder area during rotations. I started out with just 2 colors--blue and red--and they loved seeing all the different shades! Then I added yellow and the possibilities became endless! It was fun to overhear as students offered to show others how they got certain shades--"I used a lot of red and just a little blue."

The Construction/Engineering area is a very popular area as well. These students used the planning pages that are on clipboards in the construction area to plan before they began building with Legos. 

Look at this student using the Lego piece to help him draw his plans.

(They have really taken to the concept that you should 'make a plan' before you start. Even when they read their ABC books I will hear them say, "okay, what's our plan?" with regards to how they will read it together.) 

Here are the plans one student made to create a lawnmower with the Legos...

And the finished product! 

I love the teamwork happening with this pair (Also, could those construction hats be any more adorable on kindergartners?)

Also in our construction area is a stack of laminated photos hung on the board. The photos are of various buildings, roadways, bridges, and monuments to offer inspiration to our kindergarten engineers and construction workers. At the bottom of each, it says "Can you build it?" Well, one group turned to the page with a photo of downtown Dayton skyline and decided that, yes, they could build that! ...But since it was clean-up time, they decided to wait until the next day ;)

Therefore, today, as soon as Rotations began, they set to work on downtown, referring to the photo as well as using their own experiences to guide them. They spent a few minutes drawing some plans and then got to building.

The cardboard corners just recycled packing materials that I'd brought into school from a package I received in the mail. They make perfect roadways! "I'm putting a lot of cars because there is always a lot of traffic downtown."

She is creating a tunnel over the road.

From the left: 

Top left: "This one is the hotel"

The building with the triangle on the top: "This is Mendelson's"

At the end of the roadway, there is a long tunnel to which they added a ramp on top for cars.

And the blue straw structure in the bottom left?: Water and the downtown fountain. And after this photo was taken, they added a block in the water because "we forgot the block in the water!" (which they could see in the photo of downtown).

(They placed an additional blue straw structure on top of the water. Any idea what it could be? The sky :) The attention to detail is amazing.)

There was plenty of opportunity for potential arguments as the students each had their own ideas in mind, however, they worked extremely well together and realized that collaborating also meant compromise. I was absolutely blown away by their enthusiasm to create it, consideration of so many different factors, and that they used their imaginations to figure out solutions (for instance, using blue straws to create the water.)

And to make it even better, when I said it was time to clean up (after they'd shared their creation with the class) they didn't get upset about taking their masterpiece apart--instead, they said, "tomorrow we can build an even cooler downtown!" And they were already thinking of ways to improve it: "Maybe we could use the table as the bridge next time??" I love it :)

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Here are some of the things we are doing at stations:

Using letter stamps to practice our names, friends' names, and popcorn words,

and practicing putting letters in order with this ABC puzzle,

Using pointers to help us read in the library,

Writing letters or stories in Writing--kids at this station get to take their shoes off while they are writing. How fun ;)

She chose to write a card for her mom, who is out of town.

And math...which, it seems I haven't photographed in a while. My apologies. Rest assured, they love working with shapes, practicing writing their numbers, counting objects, and working with ten frames. I will be sure to snap a few photos for my next post ;)

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During Reader's Workshop, we learn about a letter each day. We go through the letter book on the interactive whiteboard, highlighting the letter and putting boxes around the popcorn words 'is' and 'for.' Then the students return to their seats with a paper version of the book, which they 'Level 1 whisper read' with a partner. They go through and highlight/box the letters and popcorn words and then the partners trade books to check that all of them were found. 

Later in the morning, we have ABCs in which we practice the correct formation of the uppercase and lowercase and then come up with a list of words that start with that letter. The students choose which one they want to draw and return to their seats. Those pictures are cut out and arranged on construction paper for our ABC big book (though, currently each completed page is proudly displayed on the wall in the classroom.)

(They found a little word inside a bigger word! The word 'is' is inside of Harris!)

Top: hide-out

Middle: heavy

Bottom: hole

Here is close-up of the picture of heavy:

He does not look happy about carrying that heavy object ;)

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The students got all their gems in the jar again and they voted for Pajama Day! 

For the record, this was not a "smile at the camera because today is Pajama Day" type of photo but since our day was so busy, we didn't have a chance to get that shot before a couple students had already left for the day. Thus, a photo with some pretty hilarious facial expressions.

And, here is most of the class for a "smile at the camera" shot...(which, admittedly, still has some pretty funny expressions happening.)

In the morning, Rabbi Karen came to read a 'bedtime' story about Naamah, Noah's wife, singing to sleep the animals and humans as the ark was tossed about in the water.

Later that day, we watched Good Night Moon being read.

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In Art, the students created pumpkins out of clay! I can't wait to see how they turn out after they are fired and glazed!

Special student, rotations, and Sukkot!

As I mentioned before, the start of kindergarten is all about building community! We had so much fun getting to know one another as each student got a day to be the 'special student' and bring in a few items that represent things about him/her. As he/she is telling the class about the items, I am creating a web map about the student. 

Then during our writing time, we are learning that we can tell stories through pictures. The students think of a story involving him/her and the special student. It can be something real, such as playing baseball in the park together, or something completely made up, like becoming aliens in outer space.

We have been working on including details that tell the reader whether the story is outside (grass, trees, sky, and sun) or inside (floor and lights) and using the correct colors--Does she have bright purple skin?? Blue hair?? No way! :)

Recently, we have been noticing that illustrators sometimes put labels in their pictures so the reader can know what it is. A few students have been trying to incorporate labels into their own writing!

During Rotations, in the Look Closer station, the students decided to use the clipboards and paper to document what they were noticing by tracing the objects and then adding details!

This pair noticed a star in the middle of the starfish and documented it! 

Some of the students wanted to be able to document the colors they noticed on one of the rocks so they asked to use crayons. 

Check out the labels these students used for each thing they were observing! 

(hair, leaf, nut, seashell)

(Spiral)

At the math station, the students are using materials to create their own patterns--I was so impressed with the patterns they created!

This one created a Hebrew letter using a pattern! How complex!

Another math concept we are practicing is sorting. I give them a box or bag of objects and it is up to them to decide how to sort them--by color? Shape? Size?  Clearly it is very exciting when they get them all sorted :)

Sorting requires they be problem solvers as well; especially when there aren't enough spaces for all the categories. I love hearing the students communicate with each other about which groups can be combined and provide reasoning about how they decided to sort them. 

In math, students are also practicing identifying numbers and 1-1 correspondence by counting out and connecting the correct number of links. I love the focus!

In the Construction area, this student regularly creates amazingly tall towers, and even when the tower falls over (as they all inevitably do) she always smiles and sets to rebuild it.

Also in the Construction area, this student went through a lot of trial and error before he came upon an approach to creating a sturdy building that didn't lean to one side. Such perseverance! 

I introduced clipboards, planning paper, and pencils in this area and explained that construction workers and engineers (the people in charge of creating buildings) often plan out what they want to build on paper before they start building. 

Check out the plans this student created before starting his tower!

In the Literacy station, students are working their finger muscles by using tweezers to sort letter beads into the letter boxes. 

Students are also working on creating uppercase letters with the gems (Did you notice she created patterns with the gems??)

In the Clay station, students are using their strong hands as well as rolling pins, dough tools, and dough scissors to shape the dough (this isn't soft playdoh--it's actual artist's clay) They have been loving hiding gems and rocks in the clay and then using the tools to help them find them! This student used the tools in a way that I never would've thought of: 

"Look, I'm shouting!" Too funny ;)

At the start of the school year, the students were each given a blank book to create a 'Birthday Book'--which is a book filled with pictures and words from their 5-6 years of life so far. All of the books that have been returned are available in our classroom library for the students to read (these are some of their favorites!). If they want to read someone else's book, they need to ask the person first--there have been so many opportunities for using polite words, sharing, and accepting when someone says no. 

Finally, this past week, we celebrated Sukkot. We had a blast learning about and eating lunch in different sukkahs!