Upon the students' return from Thanksgiving break we began an author study of Jan Brett. The goal of this study was to learn a little about Jan Brett's life, where she gets ideas for her books and then a close inspection of the common characteristics of her stories. We began with a short video of her life which told us that Brett lives in Massachusetts, has several pets including chickens and a hedgehog and that she loves to travel. She gets ideas for her stories from the places she's visited and will incorporate different cultures into her books by setting old folktales in new environments. Her stories always seem to include animals.
The first story we read as a class was The Mitten, a perfect story to accompany the falling snow and arrival of winter clothing right here in Medfield. The students noticed the "windows" on each of the pages which gave clues as to what would come next in the story. We discussed the sophisticated vocabulary that described the movements of the animals as they entered the mitten; lumbered, snuffled, burrowed. Finally, we sequenced the animals in the story in order to act it out both with masks and small animal figures.
We next read The Hat which is a story that stars Jan Brett's beloved Hedgehog character. In the story, a girl airs out her laundry on a clothesline and a hedgehog gets a sock caught on his head. The other animals on the farm make fun of him, but also realize that he must be warm in his new "hat". Therefore, the animals each take articles of clothing off of the clothesline to wear until there are no clothes left. This time instead of "windows", Jan Brett creates a clothesline at the top of each page. The students were asked to identify which article of clothing went missing. At the end of the story, the children matched magnetic pictures of the clothing to the animals that wore them.
Honey, Honey, Lion! is a story that takes place in Botswana. We first talked about the difference in settings between The Hat, The Mitten and this story. The students observed the grassy plain and the animals in the book. This story intends to teach a lesson about sharing. The book tells the tale of the honey badger who keeps all of the honey to himself without sharing with his friend, the honeyguide, who told him where to find the honey. As a consequence, instead of leading honey badger to honey the next time, honeyguide leads him to a lion! The story progresses through a variety of settings (through grass, over a log, around a tree, etc.) This exposed the children to positional words, but also onomatopoeia. As honey badger moves through each of the settings, sound words are found on each page. The children and I discussed the effects of these words on the story and then used instruments to imitate the sounds.
Our final Jan Brett story before transitioning into a Gingerbread theme was Gingerbread Baby. This story is a twist on the traditional Gingerbread Man story. It begins similarly with the Gingerbread Baby escaping from the oven and running away from a variety of characters, but instead of being eaten by a fox, a boy makes a gingerbread house for him to live in at the end of the story. Jan Brett's characteristic "windows" show us a side story as the boy mixes and bakes a house, allowing the children to predict the story's conclusion. Following our reading, the children worked on sequencing the story and recalling the characters the Gingerbread Baby outwitted. Finally, using masks they ordered themselves and acted out the movements of each character.
We will continue to revisit Jan Brett and her stories through a variety of themes for the remainder of the school year.
We will continue to revisit Jan Brett and her stories through a variety of themes for the remainder of the school year.
Math and Literacy
We addressed a variety of math skills this passed month. We continue to work on counting and number recognition. While students count manipulatives in a variety of activities, they are learning to count groups of objects on paper as well. The mitten game shown below demonstrates students counting snowflakes and matching the total amount to a number written on a mitten. This game is differentiated for students offering numbers 1-5, 1-10 and 1-20.
Students have also been working on geometry concepts. Beyond just naming shapes, the children are learning to sort shapes by size, color, number of sides, number of corners and curved/straight lines.
Although not pictured, a variety of literacy skills are integrated into our play and through small group activities. Children are working on letter recognition through games. We are also practicing rhyming, syllabication, beginning sounds and the idea that words make up sentences. We have almost completed stage one of the Fundations curriculum which introduces all of the letters of the alphabet as well as their keyword and sound. Next, we will begin writing each letter.
Dramatic Play
Since Jan Brett is a world traveler and since many families travel during Thanksgiving and the upcoming vacation, our Dramatic Play area was transformed into an airport. The children had the opportunity to be travelers buying tickets, placing their baggage through the baggage claim and requesting food on the airplane. Students also could take on the roles of pilot, copilot, security and flight attendant.
Light Table
One of our newest classroom purchases is a light table. It is a fun way to practice literacy, math and spatial skills. As an introduction, the students were given interlocking tiles to explore. It was great to see the designs and patterns they created together.
Art
Art projects included watercolor mittens as well as construction paper hats which practiced scissor skills and gluing.
Sensory Table
Students enjoyed gathering, scooping, and pouring colorful water beads in the sensory table. It is wonderful to see the cooperation involved and to listen to the conversations that naturally occur at the sensory table. Children are sharing ideas, creating and revising plans, talking about their actions and providing feedback to one another.
Games
Games practice turn-taking skills, conversational skills and strategy. Students played a memory game that included the animal characters from Jan Brett's books.
Blocks
In the block area, children worked together to create structures from Magnatiles. Again, cooperation, conversation, and problem solving skills are all at work. Small jingle bells were added to include an element of sound to the students' buildings.
Mindfulness
We are continuing mindful practices in the classroom. This month I introduced Winter Yoga. As part of our morning circle routine, we are going through a yoga series that includes poses of some of our favorite winter activities. Below the children are curled up into snowballs. Other poses include snowman, ice skater, snowboarder, and sledding.
In addition, students are encouraged to continue practicing mindful breathing, particularly when they are upset or need to calm themselves. As a class, we focus our minds and concentrate on our breath just before read aloud. Two new breaths were introduced. Icicle breath which involves sitting with our backs straight like an icicle and breathing in the cold air through our noses and breathing out the warm air from our mouths. Snow globe breathing involves slowing our breath as we watch the snow fall inside a snow globe.
Gym
At gym we played a game called Winter Captain. The children were taught several different winter activities that were either individualized or required them to partner with friends. I would shout out an activity (sledding, snow angels, snowstorm, etc.) and the children would hurry to complete the movement. Next, the students participated in an obstacle course around the gym that involved running, jumping, climbing, throwing, and balancing skills.
