Writers Workshop Tip: Headphones Help Them Concentrate

Writers Workshop can be made easier and headphones can help. I have found that using headphones during my writers workshop time helps my kindergarten students concentrate better, reduces noise and adds a "hook" of interest. Writers workshop time can be super-productive with the help of some old headphone sets. Here is how I organize my headphones and how they work for me.

Why I Included Headphones into Writers Workshop

I have found that making headphones available regularly to my students has been beneficial. It started because I knew I was going to have a student who would use noise cancelling headphones regularly and I wanted headphones to feel "regular" in our room. I also wanted to give my students who enjoy quiet times a mini-escape while they work.

I didn't know how powerful they were going to be. I had one student who regularly asked for them even when it wasn't writing time but independent work time. While they do little to block out noise when compared to the occupational-therapy version, they did work for many students.

How I Included Headphones into Writers Workshop

I simply let students know the purpose of them and modeled using them when I was doing a write-aloud. It really was that simple. I created a hanging space for them on a wall in the classroom. We even use an old pencil sharpener fixture to hang a pair.

The blue hooks pictured above came from the Dollar Tree. I should add them to my list of things worth purchasing!

{Recognize the author this kinder-author is modeling after?}

Tips

My tips for including headphones into your classroom whether you have them available for only during writers workshop or for the entire day is to have a plan in place for when multiple students want to use them and you don't have enough. Just as with anything, I most often approached it with "sometimes we do, sometimes we don't" philosophy since I am big on recognizing that sometimes life 'appears' unfair. {'cuz let's be real, when you're five and you don't get your way... most things feel unfair}

I eventually began to let students use them throughout the day once I felt comfortable with them and the new procedures we had set for using them. Often students felt they just needed them even for a few minutes before passing them onto someone else or returning them to the hooks.

How to Make Headphones for the Classroom

I took headphones that no longer worked from our classroom stash and also made an appeal from our computer lab tech to save some for me. I simply cut the cord with scissors to keep just the band. I also earned a "whisper phone" (different from the ones I use in the detective center) from my points with scholastic book orders. This one I model specifically for using to hear the sounds when writing and reading.

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Think it might work in your classroom? What tips do you have?

If you like what I do here on KindergartenWorks, then be sure to subscribe today. I look forward to sharing ideas with you weekly.
- Leslie

*Free downloadable Thank You Gift included when you subscribe via email or RSS.

end of the year kindergarten handprint poem

The end of the school year brings lots of work and pulling a year's worth of learning together. Learning about each other, life, academics, problem solving and more. How can a kindergarten teacher use activities to help pull it together? Here is one idea where the finished product is more for the parents, but is a great discussion starter and lead-in activity.

End of the Year Handprint Kindergarten Poem

This end of the year Kindergarten Handprint Poem is a great printable from Little Miss Kindergarten that you can use with your class. We actually had it going simultaneously during one of our last writer's workshop sessions. We always start by writing our names and putting on invisible gloves (a foamy great-smelling soap) and rub it in like hand sanitizer.

End of the Year Kindergarten Handprint Poem

Students chose from three colors of paint and added their own prints. I think that they turned out very beautiful just as they are on white paper, so we didn't add anything, although you could definitely could let them paint or add more to the frame.

We don't "graduate" from kindergarten in our building and honestly, some will be ours again next year in kindergarten. Yet, we don't focus on that line of the poem as a class. We focus on how far we've come and we read First Day Jitters. (They can handle the twist ending by the end of kindergarten) We tour first grade classrooms while they're away at a special and write a letter to our new teacher.

I attach their letter to the back of their student profile sheet so when we do our class sorts, the teacher can be familiar with their writing, work and get a warm note from their new student. It all comes from these cute end of the year handprint poems and kicks off our wrap up activities with the right note of celebration (without the craziness), excitement for next year and appreciation for kindergarten.

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I'm that kind of teacher who is already thinking about organizing and freshening up one or two things to prepare mentally for next year. How about you?
If you like what I do here on KindergartenWorks, then be sure to subscribe today. I look forward to sharing ideas with you weekly.
- Leslie

*Free downloadable Thank You Gift included when you subscribe via email or RSS.

releasing painted lady butterflies in kindergarten

Here is the next step in investigating painted lady butterflies in kindergarten. I previously laid out how I like to order the larva and my tips for investigating and allowing them to grow. This is the last section of the three part series.

> Read about ordering and setting this unit up 
> Read about investigating and housing the larva and pupa

Releasing Painted Lady Butterflies in Kindergarten

We try to find a butterfly once they have emerged that has crumpled wings. It's a great connection piece to discussing the "useless as wet paper" wings as mentioned in the story Stellaluna. This butterfly becomes our main specimen. The other butterflies stay in their dome for regular observation. I allow students time to observe as they walk by without too much hindrance during the day.

Our main specimen gets to help us observe the parts of the body up close under our document camera since he is less likely to fly away. We observe the hairy abdomen, eyes, antennae and proboscis. I will also take out a more regular butterfly that seems calm {but always share my expectations of remaining still if it flutters away} and we observe the wings and color patterns.

This part of our observation always affirms that they are indeed painted lady butterflies and I will also sit everyone in a circle and walk slowly past as the get to see the top and underside of the wings and the body up close. As we move onto writing about our observations, I do a detailed drawing as a model which most of them attempt to follow.

While we have them we feed them fierce grape Gatorade in a shallow bowl that has a plastic sponge to keep them from drowning. We are sure to observe one whose wings make it less likely to fly away on the sponge to observe how it uses its proboscis (tongue).

There comes a time when the butterflies have to be released. Normally they can live slightly longer than a week in our classroom habitat and lay eggs.

Now, when we are ready to release them... it seriously takes about 45 mins. to get everyone a butterfly, take a snapshot close up (like you see below) and actually out the door to release them.

But, for this day, I don't mind climbing the walls to capture the fly-aways and return them to their rightful owners (reminds me of the first few days if kindergarten). It's worth it for the smiles of awe.

And as we depart outside, I watch through a camera screen as little ones hold onto, chase down, stare in wonder at their beloved creatures of flight, I mentally start the process of releasing of "my" kinders as they truly are ready to fly away too.

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Here comes the end of the school year! Ready for it? {wink} If you like what I do here on KindergartenWorks, then be sure to subscribe today. I look forward to sharing ideas with you weekly.
- Leslie

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breaking handwriting down

Training up writers that can write not only fluently, but with fluid hand motions is something I gave thought to this year. Last school year was the first time I worked with the Common Core Standards and a mid-year expectation is that kinders will master:

• K.L.1.a-3. Print all uppercase letters.
• K.L.1.a-4. Print all lowercase letters.

At first, I'll admit, I was frustrated by having to put this into place. I've always focused on handwriting and forming letters (I had a principal that felt handwriting was very important). However, I took my time teaching letter formation. This year, I see the benefits of increasing the intensity with which we practiced, but also increasing the frequency of smart practice.

By increasing the intensity and amount of practice in smart ways, I do see less hesitation in general from my writers and I do less re-teaching in this area overall. Why? Because they haven't had time to develop incorrect habits.


We started teaching a letter a day to our students and part of my main focus was how to form the letter. We skywrite with our fingers, noses, toes... anything to keep us moving those first days of school! We always followed up the morning after by practicing the letter with our "rainbow books" that my favorite teacher down the hall made for us. (And boy do some learn their color words from this!)

Teaching a sing-songy way to form it while describing the strokes really helped set the stage.


We do have a handwriting curriculum book that does get used (ah hem), but it lacks showing the connection between the strokes I knew my students picked up from our sing-songy practice and the letters that actually use those strokes.

So I made three simple sheets to practice in small groups. The top portion practices the simple stroke and the bottom is the letters that I think help practice the stroke the best. At the bottom, my kinders had to change crayon colors when writing each letter. This was almost mean, but it works. They have to almost hit the "reset" button in their brains to think, "What kind of stroke was I making?" when putting their new crayon to the paper. If they simply use the same color, they begin to go on autopilot and focus less on what their hand is actually doing.

We didn't just practice on these sheets that went home. We practiced in our small groups on whiteboards, in paint bags, with playdough and I assessed along the way...

What didn't work...

My desire to have students practice just the letters they needed to form correctly was very tricky to keep track of and communicate progress to each student on an on-going basis. I could keep track in my binder, but how could I let the kinders get excited over their own growth, even if it was just one new letter they figured out? And how can I show them which letters they should be practicing individually over and over right now?

I made an alphabet chart for each student and we marked off each letter they mastered. This was way too tricky to keep up with. The format was just too cumbersome and flipping to a different student's page to mark off their letters while others needed to see their page so they could see what to work on just didn't work logistically.

What did work...

Note cards. I actually made these to focus the practice my kinders were doing on producing their letter sounds. Only the letters sounds they needed were written on their own personal card. They had to cover up each letter written on their card with a bingo chip three times at the beginning of a group lesson before completing the whole alphabet chart with sounds. When a student could produce each sound without the chart, we marked it off and celebrated!

So, I flipped over their card and drew a pencil icon at the top to signify these were for handwriting to my emerging readers. I wrote their letters to still master underneath, grouped by upper and lowercase. As pictured above, you can see that this student had quite a few to practice right after our first quarter assessments based on the number of letters written on the card. You can also see that we can easily cross things off as they are mastered, giving a sense of accomplishment!

Same routine... they get their individual card (which are easily stored by groups) and practice writing each letter three times. I did incentivize them for their hard work the first few times (a smelly spot works wonders), but now they want the privilege to do the whole chart and strut their stuff after practicing their focus letters! This also gives me the luxury of being able to give each kinder my attention since they all finish at different times, yet have an additional thing to do. These sheets were created this year after I made my starting dot handwriting font and they are laminated with uppercase on one side, lowercase on the other.

While all of that is in small group, remember I said that we started out our year teaching a letter a day? We moved to focusing on vowels and then began hitting a letter formation pattern as a focus during a whole group work time. Well, I figured if using an alphabet and sight word chart work... why not a handwriting chart?

{Free Handwriting Strokes Posters}

So I made a few handwriting posters (giant sized) and we used one of the four (seen on the right) as a focus for a week. Again we used skywriting with fingers, noses and toes to feel the formation of the letters and even went on a hunt around the classroom for letters with the pattern.

This helped keep the sing-songy strokes as something that connected the whole class and gave us all "one language" to speak.

We are getting very close to all traditional students being at 100% and I am seeing huge gains in both writing sight words and writing in general.

More Handwriting

> Get the handwriting font (free)
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So, with some focused practice which I felt was smarter than I've done before, I am one happy teacher to celebrate the little moments of mastery with my kinders! If you like what I do here on KindergartenWorks, then be sure to subscribe today. I look forward to sharing ideas with you weekly.
- Leslie

*Free downloadable Thank You Gift included when you subscribe via email or RSS.

the write stuff

Thanks to everyone who weighed in last week as to what they'd like for me to share next. It seems that sharing about writing has topped the list for this week. Just this week, I gave a private tour of my classroom to a teacher friend in our district who wanted to see how centers work for us. It seriously lasted an hour and a half! It was great fun sharing and talking together about how to make literacy the most concrete for kinders without having to do worksheets when possible.

Okay, onto writing... Oh yes, and the reason I started this post by sharing about my friend coming to visit. She was asking about which center is my "reading" center and which one is my "writing" center. And my answer is that they are either reading, writing or doing both at every center. So that's why we had such a long, but fun discussion.

I do have two centers that focus mainly on "writing" in the more traditional sense. The first is already in place within our classroom and is called the writing center.

This center is housed in a three-drawer organizer and a basket. We started an initiative years ago to expose students to letter writing at a younger age. This was how I developed it and its stuck! Each week, we write to one lucky duck kinder and all write a letter to him/her.

{download this poster}

We interview them and fill out a web listing some of their favorite things before we begin writing for the week. Then we hang the chart by this center for handy reference. I change the names on the master one on my computer and will slightly alter the message as time goes on.

I do change the letters within the entire letter to dotted as we master them in handwriting and gradually leave words missing until we are all writing in the spring and then the letter is completely up to them to write!

When the lucky duck kinder comes to this center, he or she works on decorating the front cover and making it all theirs.

{download example}

They turn these into a basket on my desk (actually its the only thing turned in during centers) so that way I can give them a quick glance before compiling them.

I compile them the next week (when we're already working on someone new) into a book. We read them together and our special kinder gets to sit at the front while we all read our page to them. Last year I sent these books home right away. This year, I've added a reading component by creating a place to house these books. Students will still get to take them home, just on "loan" until the end of the year.

It works out beautifully by the end of the year when before they leave, they realize I haven't had a turn and write me "goodbye" letters and our last one is our end-of year prompt in which they write to their new teacher.

With all of my centers, I try to make them open-ended and have a choice component to them. With this center, the choice comes in the content and while the letter does end, students can write a letter to anyone they want when they have finished. They can use our class address book, kinder-friendly words in my neighborhood book and kinder-friendly letters to mail. Of course, I get to be the post-master and read each letter before the mailman delivers it. Funny what they learn to write to each other once we put that power in their hands. I'd love to hear any funny stories about notes or what you've found written around your classroom!

{click to go back and get this free download}

Okay, and I save this for last! The author writing center - they totally just get more independent writing time. I am introducing this as a center this week. It will have one day of instruction and then can go "live" because all procedures are already in place.

They are working on writing little books on any topic they'd like to and this (and the materials) are exactly the same for what we do during our author writing time (writer's workshop). Voila - instant center and they love it! I totally make a big deal out of how they get more time to work on their books than anybody else that day. They totally eat it up. Nothing fancy, but its writing! The icons about planning and checking work comes from our writing process pack that I use to help develop writers.

Now that I've shared about writing its your turn! I'd love to hear any funny stories about notes or what you've found written around your classroom! Do tell!

No David... Revisited

So, I mentioned that some of my kids were working on taking risks in creating books like authors we love and are familiar with and it is taking off! Here are a few snapshots of "No ___!" books resembling features of David Shannon's books.

This writer adds extra lines (not for planning her words, but for emphasis!)

Look familiar?

Even the most simple are successful!

Adding a nickname like "Davey" was a feature
we saw applied by a few kinder-authors

Gotta love the natural spiral of things as one kinder-author sees a peer try something, their belief is built that they could try it too and do! Love the features that they picked up on after simple discussion, pointing them out, and watching them give it a try. After discussing the features of Polar Bear... and Brown Bear... we now have pattern stories cropping up everywhere.

My favorite moment from this week is when a student was sharing his book, proceeds to open it and show off the first two pages. It looks like a set of tornado-shaped, different colored scribbles going down the pages.

One student calls out, "Will you please write words on your page?" and inside I'm biting my tongue waiting to see what type of book this'll turn into.

He proceeds to read the "words" on his next two pages, "Dad, Dad what do you see? I see Penny barking at me."

 

 I was enjoying that he picked up on the pattern and applied it using family members, but I was still puzzled.

I tried to figure out what the disconnect was between the first tornado looking (honestly, scribbly-looking picture) and these next ones done with pencil first (for detail) and then colored in quite nicely. I'm so glad I waited to comment, because sometimes it takes further questioning or more contemplation to see what these little kinder-authors are trying to accomplish. I felt a rush of enthusiasm as it hit me. 

He finished up and I was able to check in to see if he was trying to make the inside front covers look like the same style of Eric Carle. Indeed he was. Huge smile across his face.

The other students' jaws almost dropped to the floor to discover what they thought wasn't good coloring suddenly became an awesome attempt to apply a famous illustrator's style. We commented on how he even used colors to match - black (dad's hair) and brown (dog's spots). Love it!

What have your kinders done that make your jaw drop (in a good way!)?

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creating a writer's workshop folder in kindergarten

In addition to writing about our gingerbread adventures we are learning from a classic, kinder-favorite author: David Shannon this week. We've been talking about writing to remember, and this author fits the bill since he *wrote* this story when he was five too and will always remember what his childhood was like. I've encouraged my kinders to write following a similar style. 

Do you feature his books? Here's free kinder-friendly book labels for your David Shannon book basket (and more)!We have had three kinder-authors that are braving the risky waters of branching away from their current writing piece to try their hand at writing, "No (their name)! I love it when they take risks in writing! So far, they are loving it too and giggle when I walk by to check in on their progress. I look forward to edifying their efforts during share time and watch the ripple effect take hold. 

Snapshots of our author writing (writer's workshop) student folders... keeping it organized!

Front - pieces to be put aside for a little while. In the front so they're not out of sight, out of mind. "Meeting" section (page protector) labeled with my picture. Students keep books ready for a conference so they are easy to grab!

We keep a copy of our writing chant in our folders for reference and to keep us on track. And we have a picture list of our class and our abc chart. (not shown)

The back pocket features books currently under construction. You'll notice students are in control of the book-making process (and stapling! Now, there's a mini-lesson for you! My best advice - use sturdy Swingline staplers (even their electronic one!) and have multiple ones to accommodate the staple-happy kinders that we all have in our rooms!)

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