playdough make the best word work center

One of my favorite balanced literacy centers is our word work center. I give credit to my co-teacher because she was using playdough as a learning tool in her classroom and I wasn't. Now, I'm not in competition by any stretch - it was just one of those moments where you look at what you're doing and feel the twinge of "I need to improve." It felt a bit like a kick in the pants because I am a firm believer in students being able to manipulate (which kinders think feels like play) to learn literacy and how much more manipulative can you get than playdough?

Two summers ago I was determined to create a word work center that taught students some key things and not just how to play with playdough, which I knew if not carefully constructed, they would default to. So I toiled away...

This center features a poster explaining what their goals and choices are. Each activity has the standards posted next to it (hard to see). The star designates that at this center students have choice as to which activity they'd like to do. (Our class agenda features the star for "choice time" (play time) so the symbol translates well).

This is a sample of the workmat that students use to stamp the sight word and then roll out the letters in playdough to form the word. I change out the sight words every nine weeks to match the ones we're working on. So, the activity never changes, but the materials change which helps keep the center keep from feeling stale.

We have one set of lowercase abc stampers from Lakeshore. They are great quality and I want my students to focus on lowercase since that's what they'll see most often in print. We have four tupperwares of playdough and a few plastic rolling pins.

This is a sample workmat where students stamp the missing letter from the ABC order. At the beginning of the year I choose only cards that feature the last letter missing, then we move up in difficulty to the middle of the strip is missing to the beginning of the strip is missing.

Students stamp rhyming words (and essentially word families) using the pictures as a clue. I took the photos off of starfall (love that site!) and align when my students use these mats to coincide with when we focus on the matching vowel or vowel pattern.

   

This is a sample student workmat that students use to form the letters using playdough "snakes." I add black and gray dots to show how many strokes and where to start.

When you put it together what do you get? Hands on l-e-a-r-n-i-n-g!

Playdough Word Work Center

More Literacy Centers

playdough word work - substituting sounds in CVC words
detective literacy center - read and write the room
kindergarten puzzle literacy center
puppets - reading appropriate leveled texts in kindergarten
non-fiction literacy center
22 famous story retelling ideas {+printables}

I have to admit, I try to work smart to create centers that will last a long time and differentiate themselves!

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- Leslie

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I can remember back to my first year of teaching and learning how to do guided reading and reading the latest books about it as part of our professional development. I learn a little more every year how to be a little more guiding and a little less directing... and I've learned to learn from my students when I feel stuck.

For example, I wanted to introduce my little kinder-group to the book, Moving Day and to the fact that the words that they will have to figure out per page will have the same beginning sound, so they'll have to rely on a strategy other than getting your mouth ready... (I use these posters I created for prompting)

 

What else could we do? Yes! Let's look for bits we know.

So I proceed to write "cars" and "comics"on my little white board so that I can use an example they'll see from the book to illustrate what they can try. So we find a bit we know in cars that looks like someone's last name that helps us figure it out. Check.

Comics. I panic for the briefest instant - there is nothing coming to mind that I can compare it to. I'm determined to guide and not give, so I lower my ego and honestly ask (as opposed to asking for the purpose of seeing if they can find what I want them to find) "Does anyone see something in here that looks like a word or bit they know?" 

And from the mouth of a student that normally needs lots of support, "Dot com!"

Yes! Dot com. I will add that one to my metal list of bits the coming generations will be able to refer to.

Comics. Check.

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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Who'll Believe It Really Happened?

Wouldn't you know it? My kindergartners are still talking about their gingerbread men. We decided that we better write what happened into a story, or else people might not really believe it happened. We also need to let the "big kids" know that we did find our gingerbread men. So we went and posted our updates on our classroom door where our lost letter had previously been. 

{note: they were not eaten by a fox, nor the "big kids"}

It would have been ideal if my kinders could've post their updates on top of their lost posters that hung around the school so authentically. But alas, our overzealous holiday cleanup crew got rid of of everything Christmasy and I guess that included our gingerbread men posters. Oh well, I teach problem solving - and we wrote in bright red that THEY ARE FOUND and attached a picture of each of us holding our beloved gingerfriend and taped it to our door. 


Problem solved. 
We let the world know.

We worked on a shared writing activity today, and ordered all of the things that we did in order to try and find our gingerbread men.

Students wrote their own brainstorming chart, just a smaller version with clipboards while I was modeling on the large paper. We'll interactively write the text to a class book featuring our photos this week carrying into next.

Who'll believe it happened? I will for one... and for the next few years, I hope they do too.

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Invisible Gloves

I often find myself walking into the lounge at lunch time with marker on my hands. Anyone else out there seem to attract Crayola like your skin has a magnetic appeal for the rainbow effect? In our room we paint, use playdough and have markers readily available for literacy center use. I have found a little *magic* that makes painting a breeze that I'd thought I'd share. 


Introducing.... invisible gloves! 

Can you see them? I also sometimes call them liquid gloves with my kids and they think it's fantastic. No more hands dyed red as you head to music class or green-stained palms for the next three days. Gotta love hand-print projects even more now!

Invisible gloves is simply a product you apply in a small amount like you would hand sanitizer. Rub in some Legacy of Clean multipurpose cleaner (it's organic and super-skin friendly) until your hands are dry and then paint away! You can always e-mail me for a direct link to this great product.

It dries clear and makes hand washing simplified after projects and much more effective since the skin has a barrier between it and the paint! Instead of mixing in soap, etc. to your paint this is a great kinder-perfect alternative. Here are some fun snapshots of kinderprints in action.

We studied trees, the seasons and interactively wrote phrases to match. If you haven't tried invisible gloves in your room, you should get in on the magic!

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Injecting Rhyming into Your Day

One of the little quips I use to help students remember specific people's names like Abraham Lincoln, George Washington and different authors that we feature like Eric Carle... I simply inject a rhyming name while I'm talking during our discussion. This works wonders with kinders and really keeps their listening ears engaged.

They love catching me saying, "...and so that's why we'll be painting like Teric Garle today" and before I've finished saying "today" they are immediately interjecting, "No, Eric Carle!" So, looking back to October when we were studying the art work, love of insects and concept of pattern stories found in many Eric Carle books... here's a portion of our class mural and summary of the beloved Very Hungry Caterpillar.

The tail end photo didn't turn out so clearly. This year, I made the caterpillar body and laminated it (so I won't have to remake every year). We simply wrote the summary using a vis-a-vis marker. More pattern stories we love and use as reference points...

Rhyming injected into what we do to keep kinders ears tuned? Yep! Tiny change to keep everyone on the same page!

{click the images to grab yours}

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