Who am I? Kiloran Fensom Senior Kindergarten Teacher The Sterling Hall School Action Plan Question: How might we develop successful Senior Kindergarten communicators who effectively use multiple modalities to communicate ideas coherently? So what? Teacher view: Direct instruction literacy program (UFLI) based on the Science of Reading There is no “Science of Writing”…
Launch Posters as Graphic Organizers
After the students built their junk rockets, we thought we would try a poster as they did well with their Magic Show posters. Some of our students had trouble coming up with an idea for their open-ended space stories. We thought they could use this poster the next day as a starting point, like a…
Rocketships and Space Stories
In January we started our Space unit. We learned about the planets in our solar system and parts of a rocket. We did a sketching and labeling lesson of the Artemis rocket and then students built their own rocket out of pattern blocks and junk materials. We talked about how the Artemis project was going…
Developing the Action Plan: Face to Face 2
How might we develop successful SK communicators who effectively use multiple modalities to communicate ideas coherently? I want to try some drama games that include movement, increase word games in our circles, and continue using the drama centre as a way to bring in student experiences and reinforce content covered in class.
Student Experience to Inspire Literacy
Over the November long weekend, three students in our class went to a magic show. They were excited to share and their parents gave some details of the trip when they dropped off. This connection was vital as it gave validation to the students and encouraged them to share at our morning circle. That afternoon…
Collaboration: building and labelling (October 20)
After the success of the Leaf Man building and labelling activity, we thought we would do another one. The class had been building wands in Outdoor Education and drawing pictures of castles, knights, and kings in Art. Our drama centre was even transformed into a castle. We thought it would be great to capitalise on…
Mentor Text Writing: build and label (October 13)
My colleague brought in a lovely assortment of autumn leaves after her Thanksgiving hike. We read Leaf Man by Lois Ehlert and used it as inspiration to create our own leaf pictures. To build our fine motor we cut some of the leaves to make them the shape we wanted. We then had to label…
Cross-curricular collaboration for belonging
I joined Cohort 21 because I was shoulder-tapped. This is my fourth year teaching Senior Kindergarten (SK) and I enjoy evolving or tweaking the program to better meet student interests and needs. I am interested in engaging with a framework to constructively think about my teaching practice. I want to create more opportunities for meaningful…