Saskatchewan Early Childhood Education Council

Inside recesses have been killing us here and the Kindergarten class on Friday was driving me crazy. I had to do something. I took sticky notes and wrote the letters of the alphabet one per note and stuck them up around our K-12 school I made the handy toilet paper binoculars for each of the kids. While I was making them the kids interest was piqued to say the least. I told them that the secretary needed us to be Letter Detectives.We had to find all the letters in the alphabet in order. They immediately starting singing the alphabet song under their breath and they were off. We walked VERY quickly (cause no one else can know that Kindergarten gets to have fun) up and down the school halls. We couldn’t take a letter off the wall until it was time (in order) to take it off. As they got through the alphabet they began to remember where the remaining letters were and would run walk quickly to the next letter. When we were done we went to the office and read the letters in order to our secretary who told the kids why she uses letters in order (phone book, filing, etc.). Later that day I added the numbers to 25 and the secretary called down to ask them to be Number Detectives. They were off once again and the kids in the school helped them when they got confused. At the end of the day I had some moms who came early and the kids asked if they could show the moms the same game with the lower case letters. It was a great way to get the kids up and moving on an otherwise dreary day.

Submitted by Robyn Hunter

We want to know what you are doing in your classroom.  Please post your answer to this question, and you could win a $20 gift card from Teachers Trunk.  If you have question ideas, please forward them to the editor.

What changes do you plan on making, or have you made to your classroom environment this year?  What impact have these changes had?

Here are some word cards I made up for use in a Writing Center. Enjoy & Merry Christmas!

Kim

christmas journal word cards. pdf (clip art from Provo Craft)

This website shows various children’s book titles on Anti-Bias topics. It shows the book cover and information on the book.

http://www.teachingforchange.org/publications/abe

And more amazing websites

http://www.childpeacebooks.org/cpb/

http://multiculturalchildrenslit.com/

Free the Children

Me to We

And my newest find, Rose’s Garden by Peter Reynolds

http://www.peterhreynolds.com/

aka bird with a hot dog in it's mouth!

My intern Jenn read the story “A Turkey for Thanksgiving” by Eve Bunting. ‎She started the story by discussing the little stuffed turkey in this photo. Later in the day one of the girls asked her, “Miss Revering, where is the bird with the hot dog in it’s mouth?” “Oh……… you mean….. the turkey?”

Some little girls in my class ask if they can go to the “ipod centre with the ear muffs” ( my old listening centre)–too cute.

“Mrs. Turner, you smell like cake.” Several others agreed and one girl licked me! Not everyone has that kind of day at work.

I am trying to bring more ’social justice’ literature into my kindergarten classroom this year.I am also going to use a lot of photography with my kids, giving them the camera, and asking for photos from home. I haven’t read them all yet, and would love comments from you about them and add your own titles! Here are some titles I have gathered (I found a most of them on Amazon.ca or in my school library):

Social Justice Booklist (.xls) (Excel file so you can sort them by topic/author/title)

At a recent workshop in Melfort, participants filled out a review template on various titles on this list. I CHALLENGE YOU TO DO THE SAME! If you use the template given (in word format) and want to submit it, just attach it to an email c/o Kim at  saskecec@gmail.com and we’ll post it! I hope you can use the information in these reviews to help you choose books on social justice in your classroom! Thanks to the participants for their reviews!

My Picks? One, and Zero, by Kathryn Otashi…… they are amazing!

Social Justice Literature Template

Literature Reviews: (in .pdf)

And Here’s to You

Click Clack Moo

Cookies

Dear Santa

Elmer

Family of Earth

Fancy Nancy

Fly Away Home

I Call My Hand Gentle

It Takes a Village

Moccasins

Not My Real Mother

OneScreaming Kind of Day

Susan Laughs

The Land of Many Colors

the OK book

The Peace Book

Those Shoes

Tight Times

Too Much Stuff

Two Pairs of Shoes

Zero

Social Justice in Kindergarten a pdf poster of my project

Kim Deibert

We are ‘growing’ butterflies in our kindergarten classroom, and the other day they started to emerge from their chrysalis. The night before class (the kids hadn’t seen them yet) I was researching bark biting for National Aboriginal Day. I came across a story that linked the two topics (I’m still not sure how that worked!) and as I read it had the story about Nanabush teaching human babies how to walk. She collected stones, threw them into the air and they turned into butterflies. The babies, enthralled by the winged creatures, stood up and tried to chase them…thus walking! Wow, what a timely discovery for me! So I gathered some pebbles, and a handful of ‘fake’ butterflies to tell the story. I hid the butterflies in my pocket for dramatic effect, and when I threw the pebbles into the air, they were butterflies! Needless to say, the children were entranced (as was my EA!). Then one child raised his hand and informed me that one of the insects was not a butterfly. I looked down, I had inadvertently grabbed a fake scorpion instead! Too funny. A teacher in the staff room later said, “That’s how they taught the babies how to run!!!”

Here is the link Eyetooth/Nanabush pdf