Spookley Story Retelling

One of our goals in kindergarten is to have each student be able to retell a story using these five areas:
*What is the setting?
*Who are the characters?
*What happening in the beginning/middle/end of the story?
*What was the problem in the story?
*What was the solution?
(RL.K.2 and RL.K.3)

This week, we read the book Spookley the Square Pumpkin by Joe Troiano. We discussed the story using our above questions. The students worked together in small groups on one of the above areas of story retelling. Right now, we're focusing on characters, setting, problem and solution.

The students worked together to draw pictures for their part of the story retelling.

We talked about adding the right type of details to their drawings - like making sure they only added the farm, scarecrow and pumpkin patch to the setting drawing.

The groups worked really well together to create their drawings.

The characters were...the farmer, Spookley and the pumpkins.

The setting was the farm.

The problem in the story was that there was a storm that blew a hole in the fence and the pumpkins were rolling out into the sea!

But in the end (or the solution to the story), Spookley the Square Pumpkin saved the day by plugging up the whole in the fence. The farmer was so impressed by Spookley's square shape saving the day, he planted seeds the next year that turned out to be all different shapes, sizes and colors!

Go Away Big Green Monster!

Today we read the book, Go Away Big Green Monster!, by Ed Emberley and discussed how the author carefully chose his descriptive words like sharp, squiggly, and scraggly. We talked about how those descriptive words add lots of details to the story.

The students created their own Big Green Monsters and wrote about their favorite part of their monster using descriptive or color words.

I hope that you can find your student's Big Green Monster in the photos below and ask them to tell you about what they chose to write about. Then, I'd love for you and your student to comment back to me about what they liked best about their monster!

The students loved creating their Big Green Monsters!

Here are the final products! Try to find your student's Big Green Monster!

Have you found yours yet?

Tomorrow's Field Trip

Hello parents!

I've been trying to check our email to be sure that you all know our field trip for tomorrow has been postponed, but the email server is still down. I'm hoping that most of you will have received Mrs. Costa's email, but wanted to be doubly sure you all knew!

Our email should be up and running by tomorrow morning, so please feel free to email me with any questions about the rain date for next Thursday.

Thank you and have a wonderful evening!

Mrs. I.

All The Places To Love

To begin our Writer's Workshop this year,  our class has been discussing how writer's take their own experiences and memories to write their own stories. We also discuss that in kindergarten we write stories about things we know and that have happened to us in our own lives. This helps us to add lots of details to our writing. (This is part of our Common Core writing standards for students to narrate a single event that happened to them through drawings, dictation and writing.)

During Writer's Workshop, we read the book, All the Places to Love by Patricia MacLachlan. This book has wonderful, detailed illustrations of all the places the little boy and his family loves best on their farm. In the end, the little boy cannot wait to begin to share his favorite places with his new little sister.

After reading the book, we discussed the places that we love best and a place we might want to share with someone in our own lives. We came up with some really great ideas, some of them are...

After brainstorming, we then began writing about our own place we love best. This early in kindergarten, we're looking for students to add details to their drawings, but don't expect lots of writing (or much more than one letter for each word!). Below are a few places we love best with lots of details in our drawings - and even a few labels!

My little sister is lying on a towel and I'm in a chair. I'm at the beach!

I was at Virginia for Easter. I had an egg hunt with my family and Eric and Emily.

Kindergarten Scientists

We've begun to learn about what a scientists is and how they do what they do. Our class discussed "what is a scientist" this week and came up with some really great ideas. In the words of our kindergarteners, a scientist is:
*someone who discovers things
*someone who finds dinosaur bones
*someone who looks at stuff to try to make new stuff
*someone who asks questions
*someone who knows a lot about outside

After we thought about what we think a scientist is, we read a book and found out they observe, write, draw pictures, make predictions, experiment many times, measure, and keep on trying.

After we did all of this thinking and listening, we were ready for our own experiment! I asked them to make a prediction of where water would go away faster - the sun or the shade. We had a 50/50 prediction on where it would go away faster, so we decided to jump right in an experiment ourselves.

As scientists, we tried to find out if the water would disappear faster in the sun or in the shade. So, we painted water in both areas.

We painted water lines all over the pavement! 

Most of us found that the water disappeared faster in the sun, others were thinking the shade might make the water disappear faster. 

Once we had tested our predictions with the water, we went back inside to write and draw about our findings. Most of the children noticed that the water went away faster in the sun. Here are some examples of their work:

Parent Night and Happy Weekend!

Hello!

I'm hoping that each of you have had a wonderful end to your weeks since seeing you on Tuesday evening.

I wanted to pass along my teacher introduction to you all just in case you missed it!

I also wanted to be sure that everyone knows that I'll be working on the student share calendar and volunteer schedule shortly and should have it posted to our classroom site soon!

If you have any questions on the curriculum packet, housekeeping items or general classroom items, please feel free to email me at binconiglios@topsfieldps.org.

Welcome to Kindergarten!

Welcome to Room 309!

Hello Kindergarten Families!

I am so excited to begin the 2014/2015 school year with you today!

I am looking forward to teaching and getting to know your student. I can't wait to start learning about each student individually and as a community of kindergarten learners.

Our first few weeks together will be focused on learning about our school and classroom. Your student will soon be learning a lot about math, reading, writing and how they can become scientists in their world each day in the coming weeks. I can't wait to see them look at the world inquisitively and ask many of the million questions that are running through their heads each day. 

The first few weeks will be a lot of work for them and they'll most likely come home tired, but I hope, excited about what they're doing each day! Keep encouraging them that they're learning a lot and should feel proud of themselves and what they're able to accomplish each and every day of kindergarten. 

If you have any questions as our year kicks off, please feel free to email me any time at binconiglios@topsfieldps.org.

Sincerely, 

Mrs. I.