Emotional Journaling: Fear

After reviewing the responses of the children, I noticed that one of them was uncertain of something that they could identify connecting their life experiences to that emotion.  Was this trying to seem brave?  Was this because of a lack of understanding of what fear means?  We can find out which this is by clarifying what fear is.

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We wrote the letters for fear down the side of our paper to make an acrostic poem.  We wrote out things that we do when we feel fear for each letter.  This took a lot of time and thought for each of us, I think the letter E was the most difficult one for me to think of something for.

We all shared our words for each letter as we wrote them out to help give others ideas of words that they can use and help them to reflect if that is something that occurs when they feel fear.  We would have short discussions on why we used some of the words.  I picked 'embarrassed" (which I spelled wrong in my own journal, OH NO!) because something I am afraid of is Howard the Duck.  Not everyone is afraid of Howard the Duck so I would feel...  That allows them to internally reflect on things that they're afraid of but might not be willing to share because of embarrassment and that it is okay to be afraid and still speak up about it.
This led into our next prompt, what we can do to be brave!  What can you do to help calm down when you feel fear?  What can others do to help you when you feel fear?

My daughter wrote screaming for help which led us into another conversation about speaking up when we encounter fear.  I used my fear of Howard the Duck again for this talking about if I went to a party and people were watching Howard the Duck, no one would know how that makes me feel but if I speak up and say "Hey, Howard the Duck really freaks me out.  Could we watch something else?" that it lets people know and others can be understanding of how I am feeling.  By speaking up, we can have our fears addressed and receive assistance from others in working through it.
What if we are frozen by fear?  How can we calm down enough to even begin to speak?

We discussed one of the Conscious Discipline calm down techniques of S.T.A.R. and practiced doing it three times.

Feel free to link up in the comments.  How do you handle fear?

Large Group Literacy: Thanksgiving

There Was An Old Lady Who Swallowed a Pie retelling
Our favorite old lady!  Now we can add some predictions in as well.  We've seen the old lady and the books make a book bag, the old lady and the fly died, what will happen to this old lady?
Again, make your props from whatever works for you.

Writing Up a Thanksgiving Feast
This is one of my FAVORITE class lists and each year I always forget to take a picture of it.
On chart paper, I make a giant plate, cup, fork, spoon, knife, and napkin.  All of these objects are labeled.  Then, the students suggest what they would like to eat (or drink) for Thanksgiving.  I try to match the color of the food to the words they offer and organize them on the plate and in the glass where they fit.  Rolls are brown, salad is green, tomatoes and cucumbers and other salad fixing get written on top of the salad in their color.  Mashed potatoes are gray, gravy is brown and written on top of the mashed potatoes word.  The students have fun filling up the plate and cup with words and colors.

Thankful Tree
Students draw or write on a leaf what they are thankful for and we post them to a tree cutout placed outside of our classroom.

Emotional Journaling: The Base Emotions

Some people have emotional intelligence.  They understand how they feel, how they react when they feel certain ways, and have the words to tell others how to best comfort them in those situations.  They understand how emotions can stir reactions in other and better support others in those moments.
Most children are building their emotional knowledge.  Some only get an understanding of the base emotions: happy, sad, angry, etc.  What are we doing to help children become successful in their understanding of emotions?  To learn more than just being happy or sad?  To help them understand how to calm down and channel their anger in a constructive way?

I have begun working on Guided Journals with the children of my home.  You can follow along by writing your own journal or making your own blog post discussing these points.

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I printed copies of Plutchik's Wheel of Emotions for each of the kids to put on their first page.  We took color pencils and colored each emotion of the innermost wheel with colors that we connected to those emotions.  ONLY COLOR THOSE INNER EMOTIONS.  Save the rest for later.

My daughter shared that she selected the colors for each piece based on characters in Inside Out.  

On the back of the page, we listed down the side those emotions in any order of our choosing.  Then we wrote what makes us feel that way next to each emotions.
Beneath that section, we wrote a way that others could help us to feel happy again or things that we could do for ourselves to feel happy.

As you can see, there is no focus on accurate spelling.  The idea is to be comfortable with identifying your feelings, connecting experiences to those feelings, and demonstrating an understanding of those feelings.  The more we write, the more improvement in spelling and grammar will naturally occur. 

Feel free to link up in the comments.  How are you feeling?

Large Group Literacy: Forest Animals

My unit on forest animals depends on how the week falls.  Usually I do a full five days and focus on Brown Bear Brown Bear during LGL.  This past year was a four day week so I did the following activities:

Forest Animals List
Students try to name as many animals as they can think of to be added to chart paper by the teacher.

Owl Babies Big Book Reading
Big Books are wonderful opportunities to demonstrate tracking print to students.  The repetitive statement by the youngest owlet will have them participating in the reading process.

Tree Observational Drawings
Using paper on clipboards, students will walk around the school and draw what they observe of the trees on campus.

Retelling of Teddy Bear, Teddy Bear poem
I enjoy celebrating the end of our time learning about forest animals with a Teddy Bear Picnic.  So with our teddy bears that we brought in, we act out the Teddy Bear, Teddy Bear poem.

Brown Bear, Brown Bear Picture Walk
Go through each page of the book from cover to end.  Allow students to take turns suggesting what they believe is happening on each page.  I recommend no more than three suggestions per page or students begin to get off track in the activity.

Brown Bear, Brown Bear Big Book Reading
Since yesterday we guessed what was happening on each page, today we read it!  What will the words tell us is happening this time?
Again, pointing to each word and tracking print demonstration for students.

Brown Bear retelling using props
There are many prop options for retelling; flannel board, puppets, different colored smocks for students to wear labeled with each animals' name.  Buy something, make something, create something new.. One year I was in a rush and wrote the animals' names on their matching color of construction paper for students to hold.  Whatever works for you, your students, and your budget.

Favorite Brown Bear Animal
This activity focuses on writing.  You can either make it a graph for students to write their name under the animal of choice OR you can give each student a sheet of paper to draw the animal themselves.  This gives you a whole group project that can be displayed in your hallway or on a bulletin board AND gives you an excellent work sample for "shows an appreciation for both books an reading" and other Language and Literacy indicators.

Brown Bear, Brown Bear/Bear Hunt Comparison Chart
This activity focuses on characters, setting, and plot of stories.  I make the chart on the board: Title, Characters, Setting, Plot.  I explain to the students what each word means before we attempt to fill in those sections for Brown Bear, Brown Bear.  Title, the name of the book.  Characters, WHO was in the story.  Setting, WHERE did the story happen.  Plot, WHAT happened.  Then I read Bear Hunt (you can replace for any other bear-focused title, I recommend a short tale).  We then go back to our chart and fill in for Bear Hunt to compare similarities and differences between the two books.

Large Group Literacy: Food & Nutrition

My Favorite Food Language Chart
Students take turn listing their favorite food using complete sentences.  Teachers write full dictation of each student's sentence.  Can also be altered to a class book in which students also draw a picture of their favorite food.

If You Give a Pig a Pancake Big Book Reading
Big Books are wonderful opportunities to demonstrate tracking print to students.  The if-then statements in the books can pose to opportunities to ask students what the pig will want to do next.  Don't have this title?  That's fine!  Gather up another title that has to do with food and roll.

Pizza Order Cards
Prior to this, we have been practicing with our fingers in the air Numeral Song by Dr. Jean Feldman.  Now we put the numeral song to practice here.  We have asked parents to donate ingredients to make pizza in the classroom this week.  Today, the students will make their pizza orders for making pizza the next day.  Each student has a sheet with pepperoni, cheese, black olives, and mushrooms with lines next to each image.  The students attempt to write the number (between 0-10) of each ingredient that they would like on their pizza.  Name at the top, first thing (no name, how will we make your pizza?).

Little Red Hen retelling using props
I prefer to use the flannel story as that is what I have in my classroom but again, whatever props you can make or find will work out well.

Large Group Literacy: Halloween

5 Senses Pumpkin Chart
To prepare for this graphic organizer, you can either use chart paper OR orange bulletin paper.  Cut your paper into the shape of a pumpkin, then split the pumpkin into five segments using markered lines.  Label each segment a sense; smell, touch, taste, sound, and sight.  Place a large pumpkin in the center of your carpet or discussion area.  I let students take turns approaching it and choose which sense they'd like to use to talk about the pumpkin before handling the pumpkin appropriately to judge sound or touch or the like.  I have a small container of pumpkin seeds and pumpkin guts with napkins for students to assess taste if they choose rather than licking the pumpkin.

5 Little Pumpkin Rebus Reading 
Rebus is the art of using pictures to represent words.  As pre-k is filled with pre-readers, we do not expect for our students to come to us ready to read at the beginning of the school year.  We can start teaching them decoding skills with rebus charts.  Allow students to attempt deciphering the rebus chart before you read it to them, echo it with them, and read it together.

There Was An Old Lady Who Swallowed a Bat retelling with props. 
The old lady is back!  Remember to allow students to take time and discuss what items they believe she will eat this time before reading the book title.  In the book about her swallowing leaves, she created a scarecrow with the items that she ate.  What will happen with the things that she eats this time?

Candy Corn Writing "Have a _____ Halloween"
Here's another fun graphic organizer that will take shape.  So create a large candy corn cut out.  The top reads "Have a", the second section remains empty, and the bottom reads "Halloween".  Students suggest various words to fill in the blank and you write them all in.

Large Group Literacy: Community Helpers

What I Want to Be When I Grow Up
This is a sentence chart activity.  Something that I use that I haven't talked about are turn sticks.  Turn sticks are craft sticks with a decorative top to them.  You can buy sets of these from teacher stores or you can make your own.  Some teachers choose to have a set with each student's name on a stick to pull, I prefer just to hand them out.  They give a great visual to you immediately of who has had a turn to speak, and who hasn't.  The decorative piece gives the students who have had a turn something to fidget with as they learn to wait politely for others to take their turn.
With this sentence chart, I do it the first day.  Bold, I know, some students aren't fully aware of different job types.  Our first book introducing the topic that morning is Community Helpers A to Z.  I place this book along with alphabet community helper flash cards placed on the floor for students to browse and identify jobs if they haven't already thought about what job that they'd like to have when they grow up.
During nap, I type up this list and post it on our classroom website for parents to review and feel involved in the learning process.

How Do I Look?
Using markers, stickers, fabric swatches, and more, students decorate a black and white print-out of their picture.  Students enjoy doing things that are all about them, and to decorate themselves pulls in those students who have been shying away from the art area, watch as they actively work on this project.

The House That Jack Built Big Book Reading
I use the copy illustrated by Pam Adams because it has each character hiding in the pictures for each page.  I have each student take a turn finding the characters as they're introduced on each page after we've read through the story as our transition to the next activity.

Write a Letter to Me!
I give students a full piece of paper to color, decorate, and more with color pencils.  Once they've finished with their paper, I place them into their corresponding pre-addressed envelope.  Take these envelopes to your front office and have them stamped to send off to the students.  Students love asking their parents if mail has come for them and it really makes an impact on them when they do get their letter from themselves at home.  This activity also helps the office staff to keep track of student addresses for zoning purposes so we know who we need to get in contact with when their letters are returned to the school.

Machines That Help Us

This is an activity that I use after we read Discovery Kids: Machines That Help.  I plan this last near the end of our time spent on Community Helpers.  We've talked about people and jobs, but we have technological tools that also support our daily lives from microwaves to car to dryers and more.  I enjoy this class chart because it is an easy way to grab assessment notes on the indicator of understanding technology and the affect it has on our daily lives.


This looks pretty sparing for the two weeks that I teach community helpers for but when I plan for guest speakers, I try to plan for them to come for Large Group Literacy.  It is usually later in the day making it easier for guests to plan to come to the school.  Also, guest speakers are times where students are required to exercise their listening skills and communication skills through discussions or dialogue.  You can send home a questionnaire towards the beginning of the school year to learn what jobs class parents have and if they'll be willing to come and discuss what they do with the class.  When scheduling guest speakers, contact potential guests two to four week prior to when you would like them to visit your classroom.  When booking, try to allow them to schedule which day and time will work.  Granted, you can let them know when nap time is because nobody wants to engage with cranky children.  When you plan these visits out around their schedule weeks prior to, it still gives you flexibility to write your lesson plans around their visits.
Can't get parents to come out to the classroom?  They're busy too and that's okay!  I send home this parent involvement sheet to give all parents the opportunity to share what it is that they do with the class.  Students enjoy reading the jobs of their parents and their peers in this parent-made book.