I’ve owned Playful Learning since the day it came out in print. The author, Mariah Bruehl is a blogger and has a fabulous website where she offers online courses for parents and teachers. I’ve loved her work and consider her a “online friend” who I have never actually met in person (unless you count Skype
There’s something magical that happens in my kindergarten classroom each and every Spring. They start growing, by leaps and bounds, as writers and then they start choosing to write during our free choice/center time. I love it when kids write just for fun, rather than as an assignment.
I try to show kids in my class that writers have many different reasons to write. Sometimes, adults need to write something as simple as a grocery list.
Writing out a grocery list
I found some printable lists on the Nellie Edge Pinterest page. There is a list for birthday gift ideas, favorite colors, favorite animals, groceries, and several others. My students are able to write on their own, but sometimes they just love to copy. I have grocery word cards with pictures and text available for them to copy if they choose.
One of my students went to his grandma’s house for Spring Break. He took our stuffed Pete the Cat and a few Pete the Cat books with him and wrote about all of their adventures together. You can tell from the proper spelling that his mom helped him out on some tough words. If you know this guy in person, you can totally hear his voice coming through in his book. He read the book to his classmates today and they were very impressed. There were rumblings of, “Of going to write a book like that when I get home today.” This type of thing makes my heart sing. I love it when parents are our partners in education!
Reading a self-published book to the class
During Center Time, we had several different rock collections out for the kids to check out. One of my little guys, who is passionate about science, looked at me with a look of panic on his face. I thought there was something wrong but then he said, “OH MY GOSH. I need to go get a book and write about these before I forget everything I’m thinking.” He ran over to the bins where I keep pre-made blank books and started writing. His story was about the shapes of the different rocks and how they reminded him of certain animals by their shape. I was kind of amazed at the ideas he came up with for his story.
Have you seen this book? I love Sky Color, by Peter H. Reynolds. All of his books are inspiring and speak to creativity. We read this book in my kindergarten classroom last week and started really looking at the sky.
Winter, in the Pacific Northwest, does not always lend itself to a sky study. We check the weather every day and, just about every day, it’s gray with water falling from the sky. It’s a dreary place in the winter, so we turned to photographs for inspiration.
Last week I shared my post about an Idea Room that was at a school I visited for a training class. Today I’m sharing how to create an Idea Room in your own house, even when you don’t have the space for a dedicated Idea Room or Art Area in your home, and how it
It may be surprising to hear that I didn’t always love teaching writing to young children. After all, I write a literacy blog. You would think that I loved reading and writing as a kid and that my love for those subjects carried right into my adult life and into my teaching. Well… not so
