Budding Authors!

Last week in Junior Kindergarten the children learned about author and illustrator, Laura Numeroff.  They learned that when trying to come up with book ideas, Laura Numeroff thinks of the silliest things she can to get the creative juices flowing.  We enjoyed many of LM's books, but the ones that really got our Bright-Eyed Bears writing were If You Give A Mouse A Cookie, and Dogs Don't Wear Sneakers.  After enjoying If You Give A Mouse A Cookie, the children broke into small groups to collaboratively brainstorm their own stories in the same style as the book using the prompt: "If You Give A________A_________".  The children had to compromise to decide which animal they all could agree on for their story, then they all got to share their ideas about what happened next.  In If You Give A Mouse A Cookie, the author says: "If you give a mouse a cookie, he'll ask for a glass of milk to go with it".  Then a series of events occur based upon what the mouse wants with the glass of milk, a straw, then what happens when the straw reminds the mouse of something else, and so on.  Our children did an amazing job of coming up with events that follow each other to tell authentic and creative stories.  The stories are featured with original illustrations on our bulletin board in the classroom.  Be sure to check them out when you visit the classroom for your conference.  Each author will also have the story he/she worked on and his/her illustration featured in their journal!
Some of the titles were:
If You Give A Tiger An Oreo Cookie....
If You Give A Fast Cheetah A Cupcake...
If You Give A Flamingo A Donut.....
If You Give A Giraffe A Banana....

I bet you can't wait to find out what happens next!!! :)

During the story Dogs Don't Wear Sneakers, the children howled with laughter at the silly things Laura Numeroff wrote.  "Dog's don't wear sneakers", "Pigs don't roller skate", "Snakes don't eat dinner at a  restaurant", but children do giggle when they hear these ideas and they also come up with funny ideas of their own!

Being silly with Laura Numeroff's Dog's Don't Wear Sneakers!

We played a great game after reading this story.  The children sat in a circle with me as Mrs. Cummings snapped pictures.  We took turns rolling a ball from child to child while sharing ideas of what animals don't do!  The children came up with funny sayings such as: "Jaguars don't wear tutus", etc.  One child named an animal and said "don't" after it, then he/she rolled the ball to another child in the group who finished the sentence.  Take a look....

Other fun in learning this week included.....
*measuring, mixing, baking and enjoying chocolate chip cookies from scratch.
*adding and subtracting 0-10, using cookie counters.
*learning the shape, sound, sign, and how to print letter Rr.
*sounding out words and reading them.
*practice with 1-1 correspondence and counting.
*matching beginning letter sounds with pictures.
*planting and gardening
*creating red art collages
*making pancakes
*rolling and running with ramps and romping relay races.
AND SO MUCH MORE! ;)



This week!
Monday is our field trip to American Stage! W are all very excited! We will leave school around 9:20am and return before lunch.

Our Author study this week will cover works from David Shannon!

We have a birthday celebration on Tuesday.

We will play lots of alphabet recognition and sound games, and continue to practice numeral recognition and counting with simple addition and subtraction by playing games and with fun activities.

We are really looking forward to Friday for Grandparents and Special Friends Day!  It is a noon dismissal day.

It's going to be a super week! :)