academic choice

Our Academic Choice is beloved by children and teachers. 

We use essential standards and prior learning experiences to guide our choices. For example, we can learn letter names and sounds during choice by working with letter lacing cards, exploring alphabet puzzles, and adding labels to our lego structures! 

Our choice is structured like all of our academic blocks; first a little teaching, then independent and small group work and play, and finally a share. When we provide students with special materials, like beautiful pens and colorful sticky notes, and structure choice like a workshop, we can encourage and support the transfer and application of learned knowledge and skills. 

Our learning as readers, writers, and mathematicians should connect across content areas and contexts- our learning should be celebrated through our play and art. 

Here are some examples of children working on Fall learning targets through their play.

Alphabet Puzzles

Cutting and Gluing

"Cutting and Gluing" was inspired by our Henri Matisse work at the beginning of the year. When a student chooses cutting and gluing they are invited to add detail to their work, bringing their collages to life. 

Elena creates a portrait of her dog, Tink, and together we add labels. She finds things she can label and then listens for beginning sounds; L for leaves, T for tree, and H for house! Elena demonstrates her knowledge of letter sounds. She is working on transferring her knowledge with growing independence. 

Kind Notes

A meaningful way to practice learning sight words can be done when writing a kind note; children are expected to use the words to, love, or the name of a friend. 

On their own, children unclip a picture card from our bulletin board. They use the name on the card to write a note to a specific peer. They plan their note, thinking about the animals, designs, or colors their peer would like. 

Writing kind notes is rich with academic learning, but perhaps the most powerful part is how a friend feels when someone gives them a note. Eleanor wrote a note for Asa while he was away from school. When he came back he found the note in his cubby. He was surprised and delighted- later carrying the note around on the playground, ensuring he didn't forget to show it to his family. In the last two pictures you can see Lyra receiving a kind note during choice, her smile hidden behind her mask, but her eyes bright with joy. 

Legos and Labels

Hunter uses special little sticky notes to label parts of his lego structure.

P is for portal (notice the neon green portal!) 

B is for bush

M is for mountain

R is for roof

Hunter is engaging in the challenging work of saying a word and listening for the beginning (or initial) sound and then using what he knows about letters and sounds to write the letter that he hears. In our classroom you have access to a collection of sticky notes for adding labels to your work- just like a writer adds labels to their writing, we can add labels to our lego structures. 

Blocks

The Kindergarteners use blocks and small materials to design various structures. They write labels for their structures on sticky notes. In the first picture you can read T for tower. In the following two pictures you can read and see the garage; using the sounds that they heard, they wrote garag. 

The following two pictures showcase a tunnel and fountain (fntin)

In this city there is also an apartment (aprtment) and vegetable garden (vetebl!)

The Kindergarteners proudly shared their elaborate structures with their peers, inspiring future building.