Next in January, we began a study of The Mitten story. This story has been passed down but the main book we used as our anchor text was Jan Brett's version (Check out her website here. She has lots of great activities and printables to go along with her books--which are all great!) We read the book multiple times, used picture cards to sequence it & talked about story elements (characters, setting, etc.) We also read some other mitten stories such as Three Little Kittens and mitten math word problems!
The kindergarteners took our mitten study one step further and compared and contrasted two different versions of the story (we used Alvin Tresselt's version as well). This meets one of the common core standards for kindergarten: RL.K.9 With prompting and support, compare
and contrast the adventures and experiences of characters in familiar stories. Check out the Venn Diagrams we made comparing/contrasting the 2 books:
and contrast the adventures and experiences of characters in familiar stories. Check out the Venn Diagrams we made comparing/contrasting the 2 books:
After our Mitten study, we worked on a few new science lessons. As part of one of the district's preK science kits, "Sifting through Science," we did 2 experiments: one with magnets and one with sink & float. With both experiments, we talked about making a prediction, or guess, first: Is this magnetic? Or non-magnetic? Will it sink or float? We did both of these lessons during our morning meetings and then students have had the opportunity to choose them off the science shelf during work cycle to explore independently.
This week we are touching on hibernating and then will begin discussing Polar Animals though next week. Come back later for more info on the Arctic, Antarctic and more!