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Kindergarten Day
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14 thoughts on “Kindergarten Day”
Can I brag on Tina? She does it weekly and has a cozy reading rug and everything. And she wears sparkly shoes to add to the mesmerizing effect. I feel 95% sure there are silly voices involved. (She does a really good Ben Slavic impression so that’s probably a hidden talent of hers.)
Monthly but yes. I like it a lot. No milk and cookies but I do read them big books and we sing. I tell them at the beginning: you’re not twelve. You’re six. We’re not in seventh grade. We’re in kinder. It’s a little ritual to set the mood. I do it on our equity late start Wednesdays once a month. Today’s our last one of the year.
My kids love kindergarten day, and I have been horrible about doing it this semester with all of the snow days, testing days, field trips, etc. Do you have big books in French, and if so, where have you found them? I have only been able to find them in Spanish.
I made them years ago: The Three Little Pigs, Goldilocks and the Three Bears, and the Three Billy Goats Gruff…lots of repetitions in them. I wrote the stories myself, using simple language. I made them on poster paper with Mr. Sketch markers (they are the brightest markers I have found) and bound them with those claspy metal rings. When I started teaching Spanish this year, I just made the books in Spanish too. Over the summer I plan on making more books, because we just repeat the same books. Since we only do this monthly, they have not complained about the repetitions. I mean, three months later is like a decade in a seventh grader’s mind! I think that the trade books made for native speakers might be too hard and you would likely find yourself just narrating in simpler language for the class anyway.
Awesome Tina. Another awesome experience to “plan” for next year.
Thank you Tina! What a great idea. Thank goodness for computers to make up for my horrible handwriting and lack of artistic talents. I might be able to pull that off. I usually focus on the pictures and not the text for the reasons you mentioned. I find Eric Carle books are often easy to read without having to adjust the language, but I only have 2.
Tina the strongest proponent of K’day is Susan Gross. She used to really get into talking about it during workshops, advising us to get a parent or two involved with the blankies and snacks and make sure we had a big book they all could see. I do remember doing this with seventh graders in CO about ten years ago and they would BECOME younger and happier. A thing to see.
Hey! I have an idea. Let’s tell the grammar teachers about Kindergarten Day. Maybe they….Oops…. Sorry. Little brain burp there.
And if we don’t have a really big book in the TL for K’Day the kids don’t care and are only looking at the pictures so we just translate away. In K’Day it’s only about our speaking simply but more importantly with love and in the way they experienced in kindergarten. They love K’Day! Just sayin’ to anyone reading who hasn’t done this yet.
AY! I have been nostalgic for this lately. I started out the year doing it weekly, then…??? Was actually remembering to add this back in here at the end of the year when everyone gets all wonky.
I don’t have a rug, but can use several yoga blankets to create this space! Gonna add this back in on Friday. Thank you for the reminder. 😀
I get to have frequent K-Days down in elementary! Like, WHENEVER I WANT!
I have a special rug area apart from the seating, and there’s rug time at the beginning of most of my 1st grade classes. Just a few days ago 2 kids came in with those plastic tooth-shaped container necklaces from the nurse- rattling their recent accomplishment. So excited to share their lost tooth w/me!
I scrapped my ”plan’ and brought out my favorite tooth book, ‘The Tooth Fairy meets Ratoncito Pérez’ (that’s what the tooth fairy is in may Spanish speaking countries – a mouse!) I pulled out a cute soft mouse prop, a pink tutu and a wand. We looked at the teeth up close under the doc camera and commented on which was bigger, whiter, shinier and had more red blood (talk about compelling!!) still left on it. Then I read the bilingual story at the rug. They were so easily and willingly transported… The wonder and belief in their eyes…
I am so lucky to teach lil kids!
PS: One kid said she gets $100 bucks under her pillow every time she loses a tooth.
Ahhh, Winnetka.
You looked at the teeth and talked about them under the doc cam…that is hilarious, and genius.
Winnetka – Yup and that New Trier kid will be driving a Beamer as a junior right?
I do hope that that particular community appreciates what they have in you. They may think that teachers like you and your triad there grow on trees. They would be so wrong.
Oh my!! Your school sounds like mine! Yes I hope they appreciate you there. At my new school I’ve really been adjusting to the new community. I do miss my old kids. Like a lot sometimes. But we had no language. Although! I just learned they’re adding some Spanish at Russell next year! I’m not sure if it’s world language or heritage Spanish but I’m happy for them!
PSS – I rewrote The Gingerbread Man in in easy Spanish -with rhyming refrain – I have it in a powerpoint that could prolly be printed out as a big book – if anyone wants it for Kindergarten Day, email me and I’ll dump it into google slides (is that possible?) and/or share as a Ppt…
It’s really fun to act out…
alisashapiro@winnetka36.org