this is not a stick

 

What if I told you this stick was not really a stick? That is exactly what the kindergarteners explored this week! Through a read-aloud, sentence building, creative exploration and lots of powerful work, each child worked on growing themselves as a learner and a reader. We completed different activities every day to help us grow stronger. Keep reading to learn about all the fun we had!

On Monday, we opened the week with reading 'Not a Stick' by Antoinette Portis. What a fun book! In this book, a little pig walks around with a stick. But wait; it's not a stick! It's a paintbrush, or a sword, or a fishing pole! The pig uses its imagination to create something new and exciting out of a plain stick. After reading the book, children explored two sentences from the book: "What are you doing with that stick?" and "This is not a stick!". At their table spots, children wrote what they noticed and discovered about the sentences. They used their extra-strength sound power to figure out these tricky sentences. 

 

Our mentor text for this week: 'Not a Stick'!

 

Reading this fun book together as a community!

 

Look at what Cullen and Ben noticed in this sentence! Can you notice anything else? 

On Tuesday, we built our sentence 'What are you doing with that stick?' Children carefully cut and glued each word in the sentence, pointing to each word to make sure they were in the right order. On Wednesday, we cut and glued the follow-up sentence, 'This is not a stick!'. Just like in the book, the stick in the picture was not a stick; each child got to decide what their stick actually was! We planned out our 'not a stick' drawings during morning meeting so each child had a plan for their final drawing. During Reader's Workshop, we executed our plans. Look at the results! How creative! 

     

Our plans from morning meeting! 

To see a video of all of our finished pieces, click this link. 

Thursday was our last day that we worked with this book, but there was still much more to learn! For morning work, children got a new rhyming book: 'What rhymes with pig?' We furthered this work during morning meeting where each child produced at least one word that rhymes with 'pig'. Recognition and production of rhyme helps develop a child's phonemic awareness, which as important skill to work on in kindergarten! The fun didn't end with rhymes; perhaps the highlight of the week was getting to act out as a community what our own stick was. We passed a stick around our circle, and each child creatively acted out what their stick was. Responses included: a hat, a sword, a magic wand, a braid, a unicorn, and much more! The last activity that we did was a digraph hunt during Reader's Workshop. All week we had been working with the /ck/ digraph, found in the word 'stick'. Though /ck/ is a tricky digraph to find, every child succeeded! 

Our rhyme production morning message! 

To see some kindergarteners act out their not-a-stick-stick, click on this link! 

From our digraph hunt! Can you find any /ck/ words with your child at home?

What a big week of learning and growing we had! All of this work helped children grow as readers. they listened to a book, found noticings in a sentence, carefully built sentences, produced rhymes, and wrote words! All of this was wrapped up in a creative way for students to show their learning. I hope they had fun with this book this week, and I hope you enjoyed reading about it!