Where the Wild Things Are-Details

One of my favorite stories to read this time of year is Where the Wild Things Are. 

We read the story and discuss what makes the Wild Things (and Max) "Wild". I asked the students to change that adjective and describe what other details would change. Instead of roaring their roars and rolling their eyes-if the title was Where the Pretty Things Are-what would the monsters be like?

Stretching Thinking for the 3 Little Pigs

We read several versions of the 3 Little Pigs including:

We compared them to the original and discuss how the patterns in the stories were the same and that allowed us to predict what would happen next.

Then I asked the students to write their own "3 Little" stories. These were my favorites:

The 3 Little Kids and the Big Bad Dad

3 Little Princesses and the Big Bad Witch

3 Little Toys and the Big Bad Baby

And someone is ready for Halloween. :) The 3 Little Pumpkins and the Big Bad Skeleton.

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Character Study-The Pigeon

The Pigeon books by Mo Willems are such classics! They are a great way to teach how to read by the punctuation and there are many ways the author uses emphasis-with capital letters and underlined words. And the kids LOVE the jump scare that inevitably happens when the Pigeon yells. :) 

So we read the books for a week. We talked about Rules (from Depth and Complexity)--what is always true about the character of the Pigeon? We did Venn diagrams to discuss similarities and differences and a chart to map out the patterns in the stories.

We made bubble maps to describe him and asked if he was the type of character that we would like to be friends with.

Then I asked students to create their own version of a Pigeon story. What I love about what they came up with is they were all different! We have been working on thinking creatively and I think those lessons are working.

Here is what they came up with:

Pigeon Wants A Motorcycle

My favorite-I would LOVE to read this book. It reminds me of the Seinfeld episode where they had to come up with an idea for a pilot and went with the butler. :)

Don't Let the Pigeon Drive the Airplane

Self-Portrait Unit

I like to do self-portraits particularly when we are having Open House-always a crowd-pleaser for parents. :) It amazes me how the kids really don't think about what color their hair or eyes are so I have little mirrors they can use. We talk about taking up the whole paper otherwise they just draw a small circle in the corner.

I teach the students what the term is. And then we create self portraits in different mediums.

We make a self portrait using natiure.

And their favorite version-Snack Self-Portraits

Does Changing the Setting Change the Details?

One of my favorite activities to do for critical thinking is changing the setting of a story. I am reading Charlotte's Web a chapter per day to my Kinder students. It is set on a farm-farm animals, Mr. Zuckerman is a farmer, the descriptions of all the farm sounds and sights. What would happen if we changed that setting? What other details would change? It wouldn't be a pig, geese and a rat-who would it be?

I assign the settings and show them pictures of those places to give them ideas for characters and plot points.

Nursery Rhyme Rigor

Nursery rhymes are a staple of laying a foundation for phonemic awareness in our young learners. But how can we make the activities more rigorous?

1) Substitute new rhymes-how does it change the details? Little Miss ______, sat on a __________. Little Miss CAT sat on a MAT-does it change the other details in the rhyme at all?

2) Compare and contrast nursery rhymes-Little Bo Peep and Mary Had a Little Lamb.

3) Nursery Rhymes from different perspectives-the farmer in Little Boy Blue or the Spider in Little Miss Muffet.

4) Nursery rhymes are from the past-what will nursery rhymes of the future look like?

Divergent Art

I use digital portfolios to track my students' growth throughout the year in many areas. One is creativity. When my students start Kinder they are usually not used to thinking outside the box. I use divergent art activities to help them learn how to be more creative. I give them a shape and ask them to turn it into something. Looking for unique ideas and lots of details. The first shape usually gets turned into something simple-a letter or a snake. By the end of the year they are much more creative in their answers.

Here's where we started this year: