I am back to share some pre-k happenings with Five for Friday!



This is a public service announcement! Do NOT spill the beans. #trustme  #Mondaymorningblues
My time with my pre-k friends is so short as I have two half day sessions. This being said, we don't have time to watch movies or videos.  Sometimes I can work in a short clip from You Tube about a subject or theme to peak the interest of my students, but this is usually limited to about five minutes or so.  This being said, I have to say we LOVE this video! It totally engages the children and they sing the catchy letter song ALL DAY LONG!  Several of my friends even asked for it for Christmas!

For the week after Halloween, there sure were a lot of wiggly worms this week. Perhaps its the sugar overload?  I wonder who had a piece of candy or two for breakfast!! This was the perfect time to work in a little nutrition unit with my friends! I introduced the 5 food groups through this fun song sung to the tune of BINGO.  We sang it every day and on Friday added it to our poetry notebooks.  We then highlight our letter of the week (You could target any skill.) and add an illustration. I take this opportunity to talk about drawing pictures with shapes for those who struggle with drawing and get frustrated. It is part of my November Poetry with Rebus Pictures.  You can read more about the Value of Poetry Notebooks HERE. We continued to pattern this week in math so we pulled in our fruit manipulatives from Lakeshore Learning and then found this pattern FREEBIE from Ms. Jodi's Pre-K on TpT to go with it! We then took it a step further and worked on identifying the pattern unit.  This was HARD for my pre-k friends so I created the white box as a visual so they could see how to isolate and identify the pattern unit.   
We finished the week with teacher directed turkey drawings at the art center.  I am not sure this counts a part of nutrition week, but I figured turkey is a protein!  I know I mentioned it earlier in the post, but so many of my friends struggle to draw independently and always ask me to do it for them. I am working on fostering independence and confidence, so many years ago I started breaking down pictures into shapes for them.  In our turkey drawings, we worked on straight and curved lines, circles, ovals and a triangle. There is so much going on at this time of the year.  I love a peek into others' classrooms too so I am linking up with Five for Friday over at Doodle Bugs Teaching. Head on over and check it out too!

Poetry is an integral part of my classroom for so many reasons.  Children naturally love songs and rhymes as they connect with the rhythm of the language. In early childhood, poetry consists of songs, poems and nursery rhymes.  Nursery rhymes are the forgotten genre and so many children lose out on the magic that comes with them. Poetry notebooks provide the perfect structure to practice skills in context!  In pre-k, we look for letters and sounds throughout the poem.  Later in the year, we will be looking for beginning sight words.  We practice tracking words with out fingers and discuss rhyming words.  In first grade, we just bumped it up a notch.  We looked for spelling patterns, contractions and yes, even reviewed rhyming words there too!  The students love using a yellow highlighter as we review these skills!  

Poetry notebooks offer that repeated exposure which can in turn increase fluency.  As students point to each word as they read and reread the poems, their brains are making connections to the written word.  In our poetry notebooks, I have included rebus pictures throughout the poem to help the students decode words and make connections as they read.  This helps pre-kindergarten, kindergarten and struggling firsties feel successful.  When students feel that success, they are more inclined to reread the poems again.  

Poetry notebooks provide a great home-school connection! Students take home their poetry notebooks once a month to share the poems with their parents.  This helps build confidence in these young learners and it helps the families feel connected and invested in their child's learning.  I send home the books on Friday and offer a small incentive to return them on Monday! This year, it was as simple as a sticker!

At the end of the school year, students have a collection of poems to take home and share.  This is especially beneficial to those students who come from homes that do not have a lot of books.  This allows students to practice reading over the summer and prevents them for taking the "summer slide". More importantly though, our kids LOVE their poetry books and I have parents come back and tell me this was their favorite part of pre-k and their child still sings and chants the poems that were learned.  We have created a love for reading and learning!

The best part is there is minimal financial investment, a little time and a LOT of learning going on.

You can grab these materials to get started.  I have included affiliate links to help you out.

           

The Monthly Poetry with Rebus Pictures is an AMAZING DEAL and is on SALE this week HERE!

Each month is available individually as well.

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