Close Reading in Kindergarten

With the new Common Core Standards, I feel like my discussions with my colleagues echo around my school building, my city, my state, and my country. How does this look? How do I make sure the students are using text evidence? How can I get little students (kindergartners) to do this too.

Here is one of my close reads. I think I had done lessons in the past that were close reads, yet I never called it a close read. I read text multiple times and we really went in depth at the text. Now that I have to do a close read I sometimes feel like I am not as confident.

I used the book Beatrice's Goat by Page McBrier and Lori Lohstoeter. It is a story based on a true account of Beatrice Biira, an impoverished Ugandan girl whose life is transformed by the gift of a goat from the nonprofit world hunger organization Heifer International.

My essential question of the story is "What did the goat mean to Beatrice and her family?" On the first day, I decided to give some background knowledge so my students could understand where Beatrice lived and how she lived. I had a powerpoint of what Uganda looked like where Beatrice lived and how they lived. I chose to do the powerpoint and have a brief discussion to compare and contrast how Beatrice lived and how they lived because even though my students attend a school where 95% of the students receive free or reduced lunch, they do not experience the poverty that Beatrice experiences. This was also evident when I read Those Shoes by Maribeth Boelts and they did not understand the meaning of the duct tape on the shoe of one of the characters. 

We began reading the story and the students used their iPads and educrations to "take notes" while I was reading. They drew pictures, labeled pictures, and wrote words that were important to the story. I stopped at every page or every other  page for the students to finish what they drew. I had the students record while I was reading.  They will be able to review their work prior to discussion and still listen to the story and see their work. 

Here are a few examples. I was not able to finish the book in the first reading. It took us two days to read the whole book. They took notes on both days.

Corene's note taking

Claire's note taking

Khaos' note taking

On the third day, I reread the story. The students had the opportunity to relisten to the educreations note taking so they reviewed what they had found important in the story. I had multiple questions that they had to use to break down the story. Then we focused on the essential question: What does the goat mean to Beatrice's family?

Here is the transcript of the discussion. It was presented similar to a Socratic Seminar (as close as we could get for the first time and doing this with kindergartners). The students all wrote sticky notes of what the goat meant to Beatrice as the exit slip.

Beatrice’s Goat Transcript

Teacher: On page 8, it states that she will never have enough money to go to school. Why does Beatrice think this?

SH: She didn’t have Magisca so she didn’t think she would have enough money.

ER: She didn’t have Magisca and Magisca was part of the way that she earned money.

MC: The goat produces milk.

Teacher: Can you elaborate further.

MC: She sells the milk.

Teacher: Anything else.

MC: She sells the milk to make money so she can go to school.

CB: I agree with MC because when she has Magisca she has more money.

On page 9: Mama says we will get a goat. …. Mama says “Good things take time.” What does it mean when Mama says good things take time.

KS: It means it takes time which means it take a little while.

Teacher: Why does it take time for good things.

KS: It takes a while.

SH: I think Beatrice wanted the goat and she wanted to take care of it.

MP: It takes time.

Teacher: I think this question could be tripping us up so let’s look at the question. Mama says “Good things take time.” What are the good things that they are talking about?

ER: Money so she can go school.

JN: The opportunity to go to school and to learn and to get smarter.

LF: Things take time and they can arrive some day.

Teacher: So what things could arrive?

LF: Other stuff that they can get from different countries.

Teacher: What opportunities did they get from other countries?

LF: They didn’t get anything.

Teacher: So what did they get.

LF: They got a goat

Teacher: Ella said that goat gave us money so Beatrice could go to school.

CM: The goat provided them with money so they could get a new house.

MUB: The goat provided them with a new roof.

Teacher: So let’s go back to Why she longed to go to school.

NW: She wanted to learn.

AnS: She wanted to flip the book.

Teacher: Can you elaborate on what you mean?

AnS: She wanted to turn the pages. She wanted to read.

Teacher: Can you elaborate on what it means to be able to read?

Ans: It will make you smarter.

MP: She wanted to sit on the bench.

Teacher: Give me more details.

MP: She wanted to learn to read and to learn.

PM: She wanted to go to school.

Teacher: Why did she want to go to school?

KK: She wanted to have fun. She wanted to learn to read books.

MUB: She wanted to learn to write.

JN: She wanted to go to school so she could learn to read.

Teacher: What does the goat mean for Beatrice’s family?

Write on your sticky note what the goat means for Beatrice’s family.

LG: So you can’t write it in Japanese because some people can’t read it.

AG: Time.

Teacher: What do you mean time?

School.

Shelter.

Food.

Milk for her family.

Teacher: What does the milk provide them?

PM: The milk provides them with energy.

MM: It provides them with a pet.

Teacher: What does it mean that they have a pet?

MM: They feel happy to have a pet. They love their pet. They feel happy about Magisca.

AdS: Money and Milk.

KS: Milk for the family.

LG: Provides them 2 milks.

Teacher: What do you mean about that? Can you elaborate.

LG: It gets them really healthy.

Teacher: What is the other?

LG: I don’t know.

MUB: School

MC: Money and milk. The money is used for school.

LG: To bring the old house down and to get a new house. So the roof won’t leak.

ER: Milk, money, a new house and school.

DB: Money

LS: A new house. The goat provided them a new house.

AL: More money so they could do things with it.

CB: Giving milk to others.

Teacher: What does that provide?

CB: Giving it to others.

Teacher: Where are those people?

CB: People in the village.

CM: It gave them more money for a new roof. It provided them a dry place.

LF: Gave them good stuff.

Teacher: What is the good stuff?

LF: Good stuff so Beatrice could live.

CL: Money to buy a new house.

Teacher: What else?

CL: School

MP: Milk, money and a new house

SH: The goat provided Beatrice with a school. It provided her with another goat which she sold for money.

KK: House, food  and milk.

So it provided them with opportunity the family with many opportunities. If they are healthier what is going to happen to them?

They are going to get healthier and they will grow up.

It helped people in their village  get healthier too.

What do you think happened to Benane when his family got a goat?

SH: The same thing.

MUB: He will get to go to school, to learn.

LG: His family will get healthier. They will get a new house too.

End of transcript

At the end of the discussion, we watched the video (edited for kindergartners) of the interview on CBS with Beatrice. It really brought the story to life for the students. They really loved the story and they made connections to other stories we had read and how they see poor people living in their city.

Two digit addition in kindergarten? Well, yes!

What do you do when you have 10 kids in your kindergarten class that have mastered addition and subtraction facts to 18 and yet some students have never seen a plus or minus sign and know limited numbers? Well, you differentiate! However, being 28 places at once is not easy. I still need to teach the basics of number concept to 10 too.

I made a video for these students that need to start 2 digit addition. I needed to make sure they understand the concept place value first. Then I can go from there by teaching them to add 2 two-digit numbers and eventually regrouping.

Here is the video. Nothing fancy and easy to make. I referenced the straws that we use in our calendar math as well to tie in the "old" piece with the "new"piece. This is made with an ipevo camera and quicktime. Don't be intimidated. They are super easy and fun to make and you can use them year after year.

Introduction to taking notes in kindergarten-using text evidence

Today when I read the nonfiction text from the FOSS Plants kit, I had a set of students model how to take notes during a read aloud. This text was about 5 pages long about what plants need to survive. On each page I had one student draw. I gave some guidance. We did talk about what we should put on each page after this educreations recording.

Model taking notes on educreations

Then I had the students all get their iPads and I reread it while they drew on their iPad on the rug.

Students teaching tally marks

As promised, I am working on students creating more and not working on so many learning apps.
On the 8th day of school with only two days of tally mark instruction and practice, the students created their own videos (using Educreations) teaching their friends about tally marks.

Student A teaching tally marks

Instruction began with a pre assessment about tally marks. Only one child really demonstrated that they had any previous background with tally marks. There was a mini-lesson about tally marks. Students worked on educreations (used as slates) to make tally mark that was stated by the teacher. On the second day of instruction, students played a dice roll tally game (EM). Homework on the second day was to teach your parents how to do tally marks with a reminder to use their words and the number 1-10 listed on a page. All students brought the page back with the correct tally marks listed on the page. On the third day, the created these videos. This homework was handed out as a reference for the students. I do not believe students used it though (or I didn't see any of them use it).

This is also a great opportunity for me to assess their knowledge of tally marks.

For student A--this child wrote 3 as a reversal and 4 and 9 incorrectly. The student incorrectly wrote 10 tally marks wrong. I can see how they made their mistakes through the video. If it was a pencil-paper task, I know that it is just incorrect but not what they did and how they counted the tally marks.
I am also sending the links to their parents.

Student B teaching tally marks

For student B--this child wrote no corresponding numbers, just tally marks. It is very jumbled but you can clearly see that he is making the tally marks correctly and even has to redo 6 as he makes 6 marks and forgets to cross the 5 and then fixes it. Obviously, we can work on the "jumbled" tally marks but he clearly understands how to make tally marks to 10.

Student C teaching tally marks

For student C--one can quickly see the child's error for numbers 6-9. This is a short mini lesson to fix. Interestingly, this is the one child that has previous knowledge of tally marks. Did my mini lesson give him this misunderstanding?

Encourage Reading - Real World Commitment

Just found a great resource from one of my student's parents (who is a librarian!). Here is the link:
We Give Books. This is an organization that gives books to children all over the world. They have free books that can be read online. No cost. Anyone with a device can read these books and get books into the hands of children. Every time you read a book online, they donate books to children. They have a cause each season and this seas is JumpStart.

I was thinking of incorporating this website with Real World Commitment for my students. How can they help make a difference?

I am interested if anyone else has integrated real world problems into their classroom.

New School Year--New Common Core Standards--New Planning

After taking a hiatus, I am back and ready to blog in full force. I attended some great iPad conferences and presented at some too this summer and am excited about the new school year. I am planning on blogging with my students full force. I will join Twitter Tuesdays at my school as we tweet with other classrooms. I am also committing to have my students do more creationary apps, like iMovie and Book Creator. Stay tuned as I dive in to these new exciting adventures.

This weekend I spent much of the sunny days inside and working on planning for the new school year. I have two residents (like student teachers) this year which I will take with me on my teaching journey for the year. They were probably enjoying the sunny weather. With all this planning going on, I didn't want them to miss out on my planning. Therefore, I actually thought out loud and recorded it for them and my colleagues.

I am teaching a new curriculum as my kindergartners embark on an accelerated curriculum. Here is my planning of my first quarter of social studies. It is integrated with literacy. The one thing I will change is the progression from family to school community to city community. I am not going to do city but rather neighborhood. This will be more powerful for my kindergarten students and offer rich opportunity for students to share with their classmates where they live. The students do not live in school boundaries.

Social Studies Unit Plan-Family and Communities

Because I am changing city to neighborhood, one of the family projects is for students to take a walk with their families in their neighborhood taking pictures of different stores or businesses. They will email me the pictures or print them out and bring them to school. Students will determine the neighborhood's needs and wants. They will report this information and then share out with the class.

I was able to order a free map of the neighborhoods by a local real estate agent so we can reference their neighborhoods on a map.

I am excited about this plan and hope to increase the project based learning in my classroom. Stay tuned for more.

Writing about Unfertilized Egg (farm unit)

We wanted to teach the students about different types and reasons for writing, so as their writing during the farm unit they will be writing in a book titled, “My Farm Book”, which is essentially a writing journal for each student. The first entry in their journal was labeled “Cracked Egg Observation”. The student’s observed/touched a cracked egg so they could see what the embryo ate to keep growing while in the egg. I explained that once the egg yolk was gone, the baby chicks would be ready to hatch! I was really impressed by their observations! Below are some student examples.