We have continued our study of rocks over the last couple of weeks. Children have had lots of opportunity for free exploration with our classroom rock collection and a few students have brought in collections of their own to share. We've spent a lot of time describing different rocks, thinking about how they look and how they feel, and making scientific drawings of a few rocks. In addition we have read several non-fiction books about rocks. From these we created movements for the three different kinds of rocks and combined these into one flowing sequence. Perhaps your child could show you all or part of this! We will be wrapping up this unit next week.

Over the last several weeks I have been inviting small groups of children to eat lunch in the classroom with me. This is something that is optional, but I find most children eagerly accept the invitation. This gives me an opportunity to get to know individual children on a different level and gives the children a chance to eat in a different setting. After everyone has had a chance to join me once, I will be trying to mix up the groups, so they can hopefully get to know all of their classmates a little better and expand beyond peers who they feel most comfortable with. So far the children who have participated have loved it and I have many asking to come again!

Yesterday, as part of our Early Release Day professional development I had the wonderful opportunity to be part of a workshop led by Amy Butler from the North Branch Nature Center. Amy currently spends every Wednesday morning in Moretown and every Friday in Montpelier leading children in outdoor exploration. While I’m not certain North Branch has the resources to spend time with us this year, I was able to get many fantastic ideas from Amy and am hoping to put some of these into practice soon. The work she has been doing is amazing and I am certain all of our students would thrive on such an experience.

When Amy is with her groups they are outside for the entire morning, rain or shine, and one critical piece that she mentioned is appropriate clothing. With snow finally arriving, please make sure your child comes to school prepared to go outside. While we don’t currently spend entire mornings outside, we do go out each day for recess. Warm, dry children are happy children! While I do have at least one extra of everything, children tend to be happier with their own gear. Thank you for your help with this. As a parent of two small children I recognize the challenges posed by all of the extra stuff that comes with winter!

We have been spending lots of time in the last few weeks working on our quiet reading routine. We spend at least a few minutes every day engaged in quiet reading. This can mean many different things depending on the individual child, but for most quiet reading means looking at a book and using the pictures to read a story. Often children are looking at a book that has already been read to them, and they approximate the words as they tell the story to themselves. Other things we have been doing in class to support reading development include reading the familiar morning message together every day and picking out specific words to underline, as well as reading short predictable books in small groups, using pictures and repetition to help us read the words.

Today in your child’s orange folder is an article about the developmental stages of reading. Most kindergarteners end the year in the emergent or early stages, so I did not include the specifics about developing and fluent stages. I often think of the acquisition of reading as very similar to the acquisition of walking: certain components need to be in place for children to acquire these skills, but as long as those components are in place children will learn to walk and learn to read. However, they do these at very individual paces. Many children learn to walk by 9 months, while some don’t take first steps until they are over a year old. Some children rely on the support of furniture, large toys, etc. for months before they walk independently, while others seem to stand up and take their first independent steps almost instantly. Similarly, some children will spend a lot of time practicing reading before actually reading many words, while others will seem to start reading overnight. The best thing adults can do is offer encouragement whatever stage a child is at. Regardless of the age a child learns to walk or the process he/she follows, children go on to be adept walkers. The same most often holds true for reading.

Recognizing some sight words is another important component in the development of reading and I have also included a list of the first 20 words on the Fry’s sight word list. We have continued to work on the, is, at, and you and have also been focusing on I, and, to, a, and on. I think these are most meaningful and most easily learned in some kind of context so I have chosen to emphasize those that appear in our morning message frequently, or that crop up in children’s writing often. I also believe that one of the best ways to learn to read a word is by writing it so we have been working on short personal paragraphs with several sentences written on sentence strips. Children have written 3-5 sentences about themselves and have then had opportunities to place these on the pocket chart and read them back to me and to the whole class. I am sending the list primarily for informational purposes, but if your child has an interest in working on the words, a good way to practice them is through notes- either help your child write a short note using some of the words, or you write a short note to your child and help him/her read it. Please only do this if your child is interested, otherwise it will be counterproductive.