Sunday, March 29, 2015

Fairy Tale Workstations

SPRING!!!!  FINALLY!!!!
That’s all I really want to comment on, but I guess I will elaborate on what is going on in KF!  We just finished up with half of our Fairy Tale unit.  If you follow me on Twitter (@Mrs_KFisher) you will see pictures of the workstations that we had within our Fairy Tale unit.  Here is a quick recap, make sure and ask your kinder about each of the stations!
*Fairy Tale Retells-recalling events within  The Three Billy Goats Gruff by telling what happened first, next, then, and finally.

*Fairy Tale Sequencing-we re-wrote the story Goldilocks and the Three Bears by sequencing the pictures, and writing text to support the events.

*Fairy Tale Character Point of View-we wrote about what it would be like to live a day like a fairy tale character.

*Fairy Tale Trait Headbands-we listed traits about each character and wore them around as headbands.

*Puppets for Retelling-we made table puppets for The Three Little Pigs to practice retelling this familiar story at home.

We LOVE workstation time.  How it works is Shelly Thomas leads a group, I lead a group, and then there are 3 groups that are working independently.  We have 30 minute rotations.  Each student will rotate through the stations throughout the week, but usually does one station per day.  Make sure and ask your kinder what workstation was his/her favorite this week!  

Tuesday, March 17, 2015

Service Learners

At the High School there is a program called "Service Learning" for students that have open blocks to pair up with teachers throughout the district.  The high school students could go at this opportunity multiple different ways.
  1. Use it as an opportunity to see what education would be like to pursue a career in the field.
  2. Use it to work with kids.
  3. Use it as a break from the daily grind of the High School world.
  4. Use it as an opportunity to pay back to a school they attended, for a teacher they personally had, or just provide service in general.
  5. Come hang out with the coolest students (and possibly the coolest teacher ;) in the district)...okay, maybe that was a stretch, but you see where I'm going here!
There are a lot of students that think they want to come to Kinderland, but once they are here...they don't exactly dig in and contribute to the class.  That was NOT the case with our last service learner.  I am sure many of you have heard from your own kinder that Alyssa Wiebel was in our room this Quarter.  She is a Junior up at the High School.  She is very involved in athletics, and is a very committed student in the classroom.  Alyssa is someone that I felt could really be a role model to introduce to our students.  She came down this afternoon to say good-bye to everyone on her last day.  We made her cards and got her some yummy lotion!  Make sure you ask your kinder about Alyssa!  Here is a picture that we took today!

Thursday, March 12, 2015

Digital Learning Day

Friday, March 13th has been declared globally as "Digital Learning Day".  Since I am at a training tomorrow, we finished our project today!  Digital Learning Day is a challenge that was sent out to the educational field to try and do an activity that uses technology to strengthen student skills and learning.  As a teacher, I planned to retell a very familiar, very loved book titled Pete the Cat by Eric Litwin.  This is a book that Miss Wood uses in Preschool, has kids fall in love with the main character, Pete, and we revisit often in Kindergarten.  In the book, Pete steps in piles of strawberries, blueberries, and mud.  We decided to take a step further and write an extended version of Pete the Cat, and this time use all of the colors that were not mentioned in the original.  To do this, I had students all vote on what Pete could step in, draw pictures to depict the story, and then used the app "Little Bird Tales" to narrate the story.  You will notice that we added our activity to the Digital Learning Day website  (http://www.digitallearningday.org/site/default.aspx?PageID=11) so we could be included alongside of the thousands of other classrooms celebrating Digital Learning Day too!  This truly was a great experience, and I hope to hear from any of the classrooms that view our stories.
Please enjoy these stories at home with your kinder.  They were very excited and proud to complete this project!  Also, feel free to thumb through the different lessons on the Digital Learning Day's website at home to bring more lessons to life for you and your kinder!  Happy learning!

Story 1-http://www.littlebirdtales.com/tales/view/story_id/502743

Story 2-http://www.littlebirdtales.com/tales/view/story_id/502744

Wednesday, March 11, 2015

Conferences

I just want to take a second and remind you all to please sign up for conferences if you haven't already.  Conferences are Monday, March 13 from 4:00-8:00 and Tuesday, March 17 from 3:00-8:00. Tuesday is a 1:00 dismiss for students!  I can't wait to share all the great things your kinder and the rest of KF is doing every day!  Please call Lynne Pealer in the office at 319-228-8701 ext. 412 to schedule!