Buddy Reading

Today I introduced "reading to self" or buddy reading.

This is another part of our morning routine, that I was very excited to get started.

We first discused how to choose a partner.  It's very importantto choose a partner responsibily.  It's not always a good choice to choose your best friend you may talk and be silly with.  After we find a partner we find a quiet area away from others and sit next to them EEKK (elbows to elbows, knees to knees).  After we get our book baskets we may begin.

Here's how it works:

I was SO impressed and excited to see that everyone was doing just as we discussed!!  I loved seeing and hearing all the reading and learning that was going on. 

Shriya and Shealyn we're really paying attention to each others words as they read. They were also being a perfect example for sitting EEKK.  AWESOME girls!

Marcel was reading this Clifford book by the pictures and reading from memory.  Grant was quietly adding to the story as well...way to choose great partners boys!

I jumped for joy when I saw that Sharan was stuck on a word.  Just as we practiced, Gideon quietly asked him if he needed help with the word or more time to try and figure it out on his own.  It was a word neither of them knew but sounding it out together worked!! SO impressed with their reading!

I am one *LUCKY* teacher!

A little proof...

While I haven't had a free second to take pictures of students actually doing the work...I have taken a few pictures of the anchor charts we've been making together in class. These should give you a pretty good idea about what our morning look like right now. This year we are implementing the "Daily 5" in our classes. As it turns out I was basically doing this program all along the last 3 years, I just didn't know it was an actual "thing" teachers were doing, since it was something I just kind of started doing from the get-go without any real guidance, when I had no idea how to create a Kinder class my first year of teaching. (MAJOR run on sentance I just used...eek!) After reading up on it I changed my schedule a little and voila, we are officially a Daily 5 class!

Here's a little idea of how our mornings go....
Unpack, Morning Announcements

Sing our "good morning" songs (ask your kids to share!)

Go through the alpha chart daily like this:
"A says /a/ like apple" "B says /b/ like bear." etc.

(I will be sending home a copy of this very soon to practice!)

Read a story and fill out or discuss orally a chart like this:

Then we work on words. Many of us have earned a "ring of words" (which deserves a post of it's own in the near future, promise!) and others work together on letter recognition and letter sounds.

We've worked up to TWENTY minutes of independent work! WHOA BABY! :)

We then have a short lesson on whatever skill we are working on at the moment. Sounds, words, rhymes, etc. This usually includes working with a poem like this.

Then we grab our book baskets and read to ourselves for about 20 minutes.

We join back again and have some sort of short writing lesson like this:

Then we work on writing in our treasure books until it's time for lunch.

We also find time to throw in things like songs that get our wiggles out, a small activity here and there, and morning messages that will hopefully say this same thing every Monday...

GO TECH!!!

I only have about 901 things I want to add to our morning routine. The general schedule will remain the same but I will be changing things up as we go along.

Unlike your kindergartener who has built up stamina to work hard all day long, you are probably exhausted (or confused) just from reading all that!! I'm sure they'll be able to answer any questions you might have.

Peace!

**please excuse grammer and spelling...I was rushing! :)