A Wonderful Week...

This week has been busy in a lot of unusual ways.  My student teacher continued her total teach, so I worked on all kinds of projects for next school year.  This was my first year in kindergarten, so I have spent a lot of the year reflecting on how to be a more effective teacher next year.  I made a lot of graphic organizers to use next year.  Here are some pics.

 

This one is an idea from Kim Adsit's website.

 

This one is for our families lessons.  The pieces that you I used are from Kim Adsit's Family Fun Unit on TPT.

 

More Kim Adsit inspired graphic organizers.

 

A Story Map

 

We also had our annual Parent/Student Academy on Thursday night.  It's a night where teachers and community members teach classes to parents or students.  The parent sessions range from how to create a budget to how to make healthy meals.  Student sessions are fun things like manicures or kite making.

One of my fellow kindergarten teachers and I taught a parent class about helping their child with reading strategies at home.  It went really well.  The parents seemed quite happy to know more strategies to use at home that mirrored what we use in the classroom.  I was so happy to wear my strategies apron that I purchased form Lesson Plan SOS.  I don't have a picture of me in it, but maybe I can ask a friend to snap one tomorrow.

One thing that we discussed in my session with the parents was how to help their child retell a story.  I use this graphic organizer with my kinders to help them retell a story, so I showed it to the parents who attended.

 

I provided the parents with a smaller version to take home with them.  This is the same one that my kinders keep in their book boxes to help them remember how to retell.  You can download it here.

Basically this method of retelling a story shows young learners that they start by telling the "Who", "Where", and "What" is in the story.  That is why there is these three circles at the top of the chart.  I made them into circles so that readers can touch each one as they retell.

Then the reader tells four important parts of the story.  That is why there are four circles on the square, once again for the reader to touch each one.

Last, the reader completes the retell by telling what happened at the end.  The red reminds the readers to STOP at the end, rather than 3/4 of the way through.

I was also blessed to conduct the District Teacher of the Year interviews on Tuesday night.  I am the current district teacher, so it was a joy to interview such talented teachers in my district.  It was also nice to not be the one being interviewed this year.  Phew!

Okay, that's all for now.  If you would like the words for these organizers, just let me know.  They're nothing fancy, so I didn't know if anyone would want them.