Retell a Familiar Story!

This week we took the time to review one of our most important CAFE strategies now that we are becoming independent readers. We worked on the strategy of retelling a familiar story using the beginning, middle and end of the book. Today, each student chose a book from his/her book box that they can read on their own. They got together with their partner and did not read the story to them, but retold the story using the focus strategy. Afterward, we came together and the groups shared how their partner did retelling the story. The groups shared the characters, problems, solutions and other key details from stories their partners retold.

Rainbow Fair

Clifford!!

After the morning announcements today we had a class visitor. Clifford, the BIG red dog stopped by the kindergarten classrooms to wish us well with our reading! We were very excited to see him!

Making a List

During our whole group writing time today, we created a class list. The title of our list was "Places We Can Fly a Kite". We talked about how when you write a list the words do not have to be in a complete sentence. You only have to write one or two words in order for you to understand what it is you were writing. Examples of lists were grocery lists, to-do lists and the lists we wrote on our Daily 5 I-Charts. The class took turns coming up to the chart, writing their "dot" and the place they thought of to fly a kite. We focused on being specific when describing where we could fly the kite instead of just saying "outside" we wanted to use details in our explanation.

Strategies to Solve.....

After teaching several mini-lessons to the class on different ways you can solve an addition problem on how to make the number 10, I noticed several students challenging themselves at their Daily 5 Math choice by solving using all three ways we have worked on. We have worked with using manipulatives, a number line and draw a picture. I was so excited when I "caught" these students using these ways on their own. Way to go class!



This student wrote her own number line at the top of her dry erase board to solve addition sentences!




This student chose to draw a picture to help solve her addition sentences.




These two students were using manipulatives to solve addition sentences to 10!

Revisiting "Good Fit Books"

At the beginning of the school year we talked about ways they as beginning readers can pick a book for themselves that is a good fit to enjoy reading. Today, we revisited the idea of what makes a good fit book for us as kindergarten readers. We talked about how it wouldn't be easy to wear our mother or father's shoes all day long, just like it wouldn't be easy to read a book that is meant for someone else. We talked about what makes the students choose a particular book over other books. Below is the list we compiled that we think makes a good fit book!

• Funny
• Topic
• Books in the same series
• Read to know what happens
• Does not have a lot of pages
• Does not have a lot of words
• Pictures
• To learn something
• Colors on the pages
• Read a familiar book (one that you've heard before)
• Author