Promoting Reasoning Skills

My sister teaches college (can you tell how opposite we are-I teach Kinder she teaches college-although she has the same handwriting issue apparently! :). She was telling me about how her students really lack any kind of reasoning skills. They can't justify an opinion or really evaluate anything properly. Well, I told her, you just have to get my kids when they get older because we do this every morning.

I tie it into our GT icon of ethics. In our whole group reading activities, I have several smartboard slides. When this one comes up, I have them turn to a partner and discuss a topic.

We have discussed everything from what's more important: hands or feet? reading or math? heart or brain? cars or airplanes? being smart or pretty? We've asked if girls make good soldiers/would make a good president, better to be an only child or have siblings?

I absolutely love this part of the day because you can hear these little future lawyers making a case for their view. "It's more important that....". And it's showing up in their writing, they are really starting to include the "because" part of their answer, not just yes or no...but why!

Wild Things: Nature Edition

One of my favorite things about October is doing a monster unit. One of my all-time favorite stories is Where the Wild Things Are. Have you ever heard this quote from Maurice Sendak:

Once a little boy sent me a charming card with a little drawing on it. I loved it. I answer all my children’s letters — sometimes very hastily — but this one I lingered over. I sent him a card and I drew a picture of a Wild Thing on it. I wrote, “Dear Jim: I loved your card.” Then I got a letter back from his mother and she said, “Jim loved your card so much he ate it.” That to me was one of the highest compliments I’ve ever received. He didn’t care that it was an original Maurice Sendak drawing or anything. He saw it, he loved it, he ate it.”


― Maurice Sendak

He seems like he was such a cool guy. We read the story (actually I let Discovery Education read it to them-I have very digital learners this year). I asked the kids to think from the perspective of a Wild Thing and then make a picture of one using things we collected out from our playground. Now, we have a wonderfully large playground, however not many trees-so there were slim pickens. But I thought they did pretty well for their first attempt at a collage! :)

My favorite picture! Love the detail.

I would feel happy to be back with my family.

My favorite answer-that would change the theme of the story a little bit, wouldn't it?



When The Wonderful Happens

Love this book:

It's simple prose, but such a great message. What do we take for granted in our daily lives-like a bird being able to come out of a tiny egg or bread--how many things have to come together for that to work properly. The kids really enjoyed it! I asked them to write about what they think is wonderful out there in the world-I like that they came up with so many different answers:

A Skeleton's Perspective

So I decided to visit the public library again for the first time in years this past weekend. I had forgotten how enchanting all those rows of children's books are! :) I came across this gem:

Now, I am a huge fan of alternate versions of fairy tales-I think they lend themselves to all kinds of comparing activities. The vocabulary in this one was a little over the heads of my kiddos-but they were very intrigued by the story and the illustrations. Now it gets a little morbid-they live in a mausoleum and her whole foot bone breaks off in the shoe she leaves behind. But many details of the story line are the same as the traditional fairy tale and I think it's a really imaginative idea. If I had older kids I think I would have them re-write another fairy tale to feature skeletons as the main characters.

Anyway, after the story and our comparison activities, I asked the kids to write from the perspective of a skeleton. What would be different about your life? Here's what they came up with:

Presumably watching "Bones"....ba ha ha ha.