Stories Come to Life & Non-fiction Texts
Field Trip
“Who’s that trip trapping over my bridge?” That’s what the old troll wanted to know at the College of Staten Island today where our kindergarteners went to see a musical version of “The Three Billy Goats Gruff” and “Caps for Sale.” Both stories are two of our favorites! We read them over and over again earlier in the year. We even put on our own production of each story and performed them for one another right here in our classrooms!
The shows were delightful and the children were on the edge of their seats the entire time. It was great to see them glued to the performance of these stories that they know and love.
Stay tuned for more information about other field trips.
“How To…” Books
We are working on a writing unit focusing on procedural writing. Students are taking on the role of teacher as they write books that teach people how to do something. We call these “How-To” books. Kindergartners began by brainstorming things they knew how to do, make or play. For example, how to brush your teeth, make toast or play soccer. Then students began to write step by step directions. The focus is on making the directions easy for someone to follow and the illustrations clear and easy to read. We looked at different ways to order our pages. We learned that we can use page numbers and transitional words such as first, next, then and last. Talk to your child about what he/she is teaching people how to do.
Non-fiction Reading
We also began exploring non-fiction books in reading. Students are very excited to learn lots of different information from these books. We have also begun to notice and explore non-fiction features found in these books. Some of these features are Table of Contents, headings, diagrams, labels, photographs and illustrations. If you have any informational texts at home, see if you and your child can find any of these features in your own books! How might each feature be helpful in gathering information from the book?