Look! There's IS!

Teach kindergartners the Soundabet and suddenly they're noticing digraphs (for that's what we call English sounds that require two letters to write down) in print all around them. Suddenly they see (and can read) words like "shampoo" because they see the Soundabet "sh" and "oo" and know how to sound them out. It's magic.

Teach kindergartners to read "sight words" and suddenly they're noticing sight words that we teach words like "the" "is" and, well, "like" and "and" itself. Suddenly they see (and can read) short sight words. Trust me they see them everywhere.

One scholar took a look at this shirt and exclaimed, "Look! There's 'is'!"

I did not see the word "is" on that shirt.

It seemed to me that the shirt read, "beware of bears!"

But teach kindergarten a while. You'll learn to ask questions and be more flexible in your thinking and seeing.

"You see 'is' on that shirt?" I asked.

"Yes. It's right there."

And he points to the word "bears."

"You see is there?"

"Yes, Mr. Gurney. I see it. Can't you?"

I looked more closely.

"Not, really... to me it says "bears," I said.

No it doesn't. It says "is" I-S. Is.

And of course, how could I miss it?

It was there. You just have to look.

Old Computer

NO WONDER my computer failed! It was NINE years old, ancient by computer standards. Built in the year 2000. Here's a picture of its bottom with the date to prove its venerable age.

Think how old that is.  It was a long time ago.

When I first hefted the iMac onto my teacher's desk...

• Clinton was president;
• the economy was humming right along as if it would never seriously falter;
  
• the children I'm teaching now were not yet a sparkle in their father's eyes;
•  the Twin Towers and World Trade Seven stood tall in lower Manhattan;
• Fallujah or Abu Ghraib or Kabul—who heard of them?; 
• global warming was happening, but who knew?

It seems a very long time ago.

I pulled my old Soundabet computer out of retirement and it's working fine. It's only 6 years old. It's full of nice photos and music, and it's always served me well. Its only fault (and the reason why it was ultimately replaced) is that it's a loud machine by any standard. It hums louder than the Giant at the top of Jack's bean stock and is just as strong. Fee, Fi, Fo, Fum.

In the kindergarten office I'm not going to notice its happy humming, so I'm a happy teacher.

Adding a Dash of Math to Handwriting Lessons

I find new, better and—for me—exciting new ways to do things I've always done even after nearly three decades in this work.

We've had to make very extensive use of chalk on wood-framed slates as we wait for the Dunham-adopted Handwriting Without Tears workbooks to arrive. I submitted the requisition for them last September. I think the order got placed Friday. A two-month trip through the business office.

Anyway, the handwriting program directs the students to write only one letter at a time on the slates. It's all very scripted and detailed, and that's a good thing. But students don't get a whole lot of practice writing the letters. It can get boring, so we've been spicing it up by adding some emotion to the letters like this smiling uppercase G that Alex did. I wrote about that in October.

As you can see the G's horizontal line got a little smiling curve on it.

Writing one big letter at a time helps make sure the students get the overall form of the letters they're learning right, but they don't get a lot of practice making them....

That's when I got the idea to ask the students to write smaller letters so as to fit more of them on one slate and to get more repetition. (The workbook asks the students to write each letter about 10 times per page.)

My idea was to have students write the letters small enough to fit 5 of them at a time. Like this:

Done this way, we can count their letters by fives. Students can hear that 5, 10 15, 20, 25, 30.... sequence on a daily basis as we write 500 G's as a class.

Later on we can write two rows of 5, count by 10's and make 1,000 letters collectively. Lots of practice and no trees have to give up their lives to make the paper.

Ramblings

First off, thanks to all of you who offered to help me with the computer problem. It appears to be dead. I'm going to bring in my 6 year-old Mac from home out of mothballs. This machine served as Soundabet's business computer for five years. It's a good old Mac that will be a major upgrade of the District's ¿ 9 ? year old Macintosh. My old Soundabet Mac ought to see me through the next few years, no problem....knock on wood.

I talked with the principal. She said the district will re-imburse me for the green mat. She's trying to find out why the handwriting books that I ordered back in September haven't arrived yet. She said that she signed the approval for both, so I guess there's some delay in the procurement department that she'll straighten out.

Sometimes red tape seems to get cut lengthwise.

I got this photo of Dylan on his snazzy new bicycle.

He's learned to ride recently...ain't that something?

These guys are happy now. We used our imaginations to provide

more roles than Batman and Robin for these cyclist/actors.

Colton became Batman's father and supplier of income.

Justin was, I think, the Chief of Police of Gotham City.

Brenden and others were willing to take the villains' roles...

We spent some time down at the creek getting to know the critters who live there.

Many kids are afraid to touch caterpillars, beetles, worms, and the like, so I do

what I can to help my students overcome their fears of harmless animals.

But I'm not always successful. Shelby wouldn't let the

caterpillar crawl on her hand. No way, José.

Finally I just had to show you some of the strings of wooden beads

the students made today. That bottom string, colorwise, is an ABCD pattern.

But shapewise it's an ABCB pattern. Or so I'm told by my more advanced scholars.

Spelling Curriculum for Kindergarten

I got a question from one of the parents whose child is interested in working on her spelling. She has an older sibling who has spelling words to learn each week and she wants to be part of the picture at homework time. She wrote, "She wants to feel like she's just as brilliant and important. At the same time, I hesitate in wanting to avoid drilling her with that type of curriculum at Kindergarten. What is your opinion, or what is a good guideline for age appropriate words for her?

I'd like to share my response to her question with everyone here:

Hi—

I've come to believe the best guide is the learner herself. That takes care of the motivation factor right there.

Ask her what words she'd like to learn to spell, show her how to spell them, and then test her in a couple of days. I'd suggest a list as long as her age at a time, about 5 words per test cycle.

Add the words to a little dictionary and review the cumulative list from time to time. When her interest lags, let it drop. This is kindergarten, after all.

Dan

Arrrgh! Computers!

I went in this Veteran's Holiday morning to work. Report cards and conferences are coming soon and I need also to plan for the weeks ahead.

And guess what? My classroom computer died.

Great. Do I think it will get fixed or replaced? Well.....

I'm almost afraid to ask.
Let's not even think about what's been lost on the hard drive....

Arrrrgh!

Patterns

I'm delighted with the ever-increasing sophistication of patterning. I beginning to see lots of patterns more elaborate than the simple AB patterns we see earlier in the year and also much more attention to shape. Here' a photo of a few of the patterns the students did today:

You can see that the first two patterns are ABC. The orange string shows priority given to shape over color. It's an AB pattern, yes, but it is unusual to see this.

Finally check out the final string. It's an ABBCDD pattern. Yes!

We also enjoyed our fifth grade buddy time. My group went to the garden and I took Ms. Deay's group. The buddy partners worked together to solve tangram puzzles. The students, in both kindergarten and fifth grade, really like their buddy time.

November's Snack Calendar

Here, for the convenience of everyone who has more trouble with paper than computers is a photo of November's snack calendar, the one that should already be in your household thanks to the Friday folder system.

Anyway.... here it is:

If you want to make it larger than this, click on it.

Rewards Don't Work

About thirty years ago I opened a school to teach people windsurfing. You see, I LOVED to windsurf. My idea was to turn my passion for windsurfing into a summer business that would bring me some extra income.

I didn't expect that my windsurfing business would kill my interest in windsurfing. But that's exactly what happened. My hobby became my job, and I was soon hating it.

What I experienced is not a bit unusual. If you do what you do for pay, you probably will not enjoy your work. If you go to work because you love what you do, well, you'll probably love what you do.

I ran across an interesting article online that discusses an experiment that demonstrated that rewards don't work. Rewards actually are counter-productive. The experiment this article describes was done with preschool children who liked to draw. If children were given rewards for drawing, they began to draw less than other children who were not rewarded for drawing.

You can read that article here: Rewards.

Why do I mention this here on Mr. Kindergarten? To suggest that you avoid rewarding your child (or student, if you're a teacher) and trust the stronger and much more reliable motivator: intrinsic motivation.

The Halloween Parade

These students returned to school to join the Halloween Parade this afternoon.

Thanks to the room parents for a great Halloween snack and party this morning. I'd like to pass along Michelle Lorenz's thank you's here:

Hi,

 

I wanted to send a thank you to everyone for all your help today.

Thank you to Tracey and Kerri Petersen for the yummy snacks.

Thank you to Hunter's Family for providing delicious and beautifully decorated cupcakes.

Thank you to Maddison's Family for the great goodie bag.

Thank you to April, Shelley, Tracey, Jennifer, Mrs.Frech and Mr.Gurney for the fun games. 

The kids had so much fun because of you.

 

Michelle Lorenz

Have a great weekend.

Rolling Dice in Kindergarten

Today in math the students rolled dice and recorded the result to see which number came up most often. We'll do this activity again and also for homework next week. Some inaccuracies occurred (at 38 seconds) on this first time through. As we do it again, the process of rolling and recording will become well established and the students will have enough brain power left over to think about the results of the dice rolling.

With enough rolls, they'll hopefully see that the odds of rolling any particular number is about the same as rolling any other number, a fact that is not necessarily obvious or intuitive to them right now.

I was pleased by how engaged they were in this simple activity, especially on the day of the Halloween Party and Parade.



Have a safe Halloween!

Wear Red Wednesday

Tomorrow's one of our spirit days. Folks from "Red Ribbon Week" will be by to look at our doors and see who's wearing red.

Frankly, I think anti-drug programs don't have a place in kindergarten. Using drugs illegally just isn't on most kindergartners minds. So programs like Red Ribbon Week whose basic message is "Don't Do Drugs" don't work very well. It's because the human mind just doesn't work that way.

If I say, "Don't think of a green elephant in a tutu," guess what shows up in your mind?

Yes, a green elephant in a tutu.

So we play it really low key in kindergarten.

Other news:

Shelby mastered the Soundabet in Uppercase today. Yeah, Shelby. I forgot to give her the prize: her own deck of Soundabet Queen's cards. Please remind me.

Corinne, see my comment on the Green Mat post.

Bye for now....

A First Grade Blog

I just discovered a first grade teacher's blog that I like.

It's by Kathy Cassidy, Blogmeister.

I put a link for it over there on the right.

Check it out.

New Green Mat

The new green mat, with room for our 29th student, Trisha, arrived and I installed it Friday.

Students will be able to self-select a place to sit on Monday and we'll see how it goes.

I painted a stripe on the playground to help the students line up far enough from the door so that it can be opened without danger of banging into their noses.

And, oh, looky here at the patterns we're seeing. Man, I'm impressed.

Last, but not least, I put the finishing touches on the vortex generator which will see service in kindergarten. Anyone got some smoke bombs they could donate?

More Math Activities

Most of the students have got the idea of the teens down quite well. They drew a card with a teen on it and built a structure using that many wooden cubes.

Here are photos from some of them.

At the end are two photos of wooden bead patterns. Some students are moving beyond the simple ABAB pattern and exploring more complex patterns. Sam shows an ABC pattern. I'm seeing students come up with lots of AABB patterns. It's enjoyable to observe the students as they progress naturally to increasingly complex patterns.

Scholastic Book Orders

Book orders have arrived. Your books will be distributed tomorrow. If you paid for your order with a check, please see me.

Week in Review

It's been a busy week in kindergarten.

I'm always amazed at how much better kids do when their own genius is allowed to unfold. Alissa made this design with the pattern blocks all by herself.

The photo of the empty tables there was taken Thursday. If you wonder why I took it, look under the tables. See the kids huddled there? Thursday was our first "Duck and Cover" drill as part of a statewide earthquake preparedness exercise. Our class performed well. The drill went according to plan.

It's been a busy week. As I indicated in the last post, math activities emphasized teens. We've still got a number of students who don't really understand them. This activity involved drawing a card with a number on it and making something out of the linking cubes with that many cubes. Justin got it right. So did Gavin.

Parents, can your child count objects up to 20?

Can your child read this list of numbers accurately?

18,   12,   15,   19,   11,   17,   13,   16,   14,   10

If your child cannot read these numbers with confidence, please offer your child some additional practice at home. You can make up some at-home flash cards and go for it. We'll be moving along, mathwise, and we don't want to leave anyone behind....

The Tricky Teens

After a lifetime of helping young children count past 10, I've seen many many many children get confused and stay confused by the teens. I feel for them!

 If I had the power, I would invent nine new English words to replace nine standard English words.

I'd invent

• Oneten-one to replace the word, "eleven"
  
• Oneten-two to replace the word, "twelve"
• Oneten-three to replace the word, "thirteen"
• Oneten-four to replace the word, "fourteen"
• Oneten-five to replace the word, "fifteen"
• Oneten-six to replace the word, "sixteen"
• Oneten-seven to replace the word, "seventeen"
• Oneten-eight to replace the word, "eighteen"
• One-ten-nine to replace the word, "nineteen"

(If I were allowed to banish only four number words, they would be "eleven," "twelve," "thirteen," and "fifteen."  That is to say, I could live with fourteen, sixteen, seventeen, eighteen, and nineteen. Those words don't obscure the underlying numerical meaning as much as the others do.)

Next week's focus in math will be teaching the teens. We'll play games with teens, build block buildings with a 15 blocks, do some arts and crafts projects involving the teens. And sadly, still, at the end of the week, some students will be confused about the teens.

Right now about a third of the class cannot count from 1 to 20 without making errors. It's very very common to hear kids skip 15. That's because once they arrive at FOURteen they think they're home free. They hear that "four" in fourteen and go straight to SIXteen, SEVENteen, EIGHTteen, and NINEteen. I suppose this would not happen if fifteen were given its natural name, FIVEteen.

By the way, the word, "teen" means ten. So, you know, seventeen is trying to say "seven and ten"—with a weird accent.

***************

Parents, please, please help your child. Help your child learn to count out loud (by rote) to 20 without making a mistake. For many children this takes lots of practice. If they're skipping 15, help them. Fill in the fifteen if they're skipping it. Encouragement in the key. Remember, INDIVIDUAL practice is how your child will get from here to there. I've got 28 students in class, so it's difficult for me to provide your child the individual practice he or she may really need.

Also help your child learn to recognize the teens by sight. The activities we're doing next week will be stressful for the students who look at 16 and have no idea what it is and what it means.

When you point to 13, can your child say, "thirteen"? Students who can count aloud to 20 and who can recognize the teens by sight will get a whole lot more understanding out of next week's activities than the students who cannot.

Thanks in advance for your help...and remember, keep it fun. Frustration and tears interfere with learning.

Writing the Letter H

Today we practiced writing the uppercase letter H using our slate chalkboards.

We began with the standard, classical letter form, as called for in the handwriting program:

And, as usual, we did 100 of these ordinary H's. It's my way of letting the class hear the numbers 1 through 100 on a daily basis, plus getting everyone to write the letter four times or so.

After the ordinary H's, we made some "ghost" H's by using the eraser to form the letter on a board covered in chalk:

And then the fun began. We imagined other sorts of H's. Happy ones, spooky ones,

 

When we added emotion to the letters, the students enjoyment of handwriting increased exponentially. We spent twice as long (and had more than twice the fun) in our handwriting lessons compared to most days. It actually made us late for our meeting with the fifth grade buddies, and despite rushing through snack time, our buddies had to wait patiently for us to be ready for them.

How Many Classmates Can You Name?

How many classmates' names do you know? Part of tomorrow's (Wednesday's) homework will include looking at this picture and naming all the faces you can. There are 31. Have a parent help you keep track of how many you know. There will be a place to write down the number that shows how many people you can name.

Here's the picture. Click on it to make it bigger. (If you ordered school photos, you probably have this photo on actual paper which would be much easier to use—so do it that way if you can.)

The Humble Pie Restaurant

Josh Norwitt and Dan McCann in the kitchen

Looking for a great place to eat?

Check out Humble Pie Restaurant in Penngrove.

Humble Pie has tons of Dunham School connections. Most of the food is organically grown on a 160 acre ranch just down Roblar Road from the school.

Sam's dad, Dan Mc Cann, is one of the chefs. Sam's mom went to Dunham, too! I remember her from kindergarten.

The head waiter, Josh Norwitt, is a veteran of Mr. Gurney's kindergarten (and sixth grade, back in the day).

But the food! The food! The food!

The food! It's simply the best. My wife Sarah and I went to Humble Pie for brunch this morning. We began by splitting the best—and freshest—cinnamon roll I've ever tasted. It was sooo good.

After the cinnamon roll came breakfast. I had Shepard's Hash made with lamb from the Roblar ranch. It came with fresh organic scrambled eggs, hot buttered toast with a small bowl of homemade berry jam (you can taste the homemade difference) and fruit. Every bite was scrumptious.

You can feel good about eating food that is so local, so organic, and so made with love and care.

We can't wait to go back for dinner.

Here's a link to their website: Humble Pie. Check out that link.

Counting Seeds

One of our centers this round is to open up a gourd (locally grown in the school's garden) to see how many seeds it contains.

To count of such large numbers, the students place 10 seeds in cups and we count the cups filled this way.

A few of my scholars seem to grasp the idea of counting the total number of seeds by skip counting (by 10's) as we count the cups. But I can see that this concept sails well over the heads of most of the students. Oh, well. It's in the standards.

Today's team of seed counters found 150 seeds in the gourd. A few days ago a gourd yielded 320 seeds.

Reading 30 Names

Three kindergartners can read the names of all their classmates as well as the names of Mrs. Frech and Mr. Gurney. The purpose of this post is to give your child the opportunity to practice this skill at home until he or she can do this trick as well. Learning to read the names of all the classmates is a good exercise of early reading skills as well as pro-social: learning the names of people who share your life is just good manners.

So, here are the names of all the kids in class:

There. All 30!

Let It Shine!

 The students enjoyed our math activity today. We made "trains" out of linking cubes by rolling dice. When the blue dice was rolled, we added links; when the red dice was rolled, we took links off. A very similar activity will be one of the centers next week.











Here's the video of our final rehearsal on Friday....

We'll sing at Monday's whole school assembly, and we'll be great!



Have a good weekend!

September 23, 2009

Today Isabella rode on two wheels. Here's her venture across the playground this morning.



I also enjoyed a meal at Sebastopol's Pasta Bella Restaurant. Dylan and Justin made it over.

Celebrating the Fall Equinox

To celebrate the beginning of autumn, I brought in my button accordion to play a little waltz for the kindergartners. If you have a minute, take a look.



(OK, I admit it, I added the applause!)

Meet Mr. Gurney for Dinner on Wednesday

Wednesday evening from 6:00 to 8:00, Mr. Gurney will be eating out in Sebastopol at Pasta Bella Restaurant as the featured guest in the Dine Out Sebastopol series. Sebastopol Citizen of the Year and Dunham School music teacher "Mr. Music" will be there too. (796 Gravenstein Avenue, Sebastopol CA 95472 tel: 707.824.8191)

If you come before 7:00, you'll have the chance to meet the Mayor of Sebastopol (Mrs. Gurney) as well.

I am publicizing this on the Mr. Kindergarten blog only.

Oh, and, here's something you might want to know. On Wednesdays, kids eat FREE at Pasta Bella.

I hope to see you there.

The Next Level, after bikes.

My brother, Jim, the artist would have made a fantastic kindergarten teacher. First of all, he loves art, and art should rightfully sit near the center of a kindergarten curriculum. On top of that he likes riding bikes...and unicycles.

He's the world-champion Unicycle Painter. Have a look:

Buddies and Bikes

We enjoyed meeting with our fifth grade buddies again today, as we shall each Thursday morning. I love this program for many reasons, the most selfish of which is the opportunity it gives me to be with my kindergartners from six years ago. They keep asking me to do an Archy show for them. But Archy gets shy....




Two kindergartners took their first rides on two wheels today, Alissa above, and



Sabreen, shown here at the very end of our time outside. It's always a big day when kids get up the courage to learn this skill, a skill that will last a lifetime. How come there's no California standard for this milestone???

As I get ready to turn in at night, I like to think about successes like these. It's things like this that make teaching so satisfying.

Yeah!!!

Homework and Animal Show

Today's homework includes a page of math and this survey. Please fill out both sides of the survey for your child and return it and the math page tomorrow morning. Thank you.




It was Justin's birthday!

He brought in Bonnie's Wild Animal Show for Schools.
She showed us a baby alligator....


An albino Burmese Python.....



A Hedgehog....



a Fennil Fox, who lives in African deserts....




An arrrgh! I forgot what this animal is called....
(no, wait...here are my notes... a genet)


An ocelot....




and a lemur.