Our First Lively Letters and September Self Portraits!
Whole Group Times
Today's meeting time began with our kid counter Sanvi counting up the students. Jack told us the date, Ethan gave us the forecast for the day, and Nora told us today is day eight of JK. Then Eyza filled us in on the schedule for the day. We have now officially been in JK together for one week! Today's sign in task was for the children to figure out if the words "no" and "go" rhyme. Rhyming is an important early literacy skill for JK children. It helps children notice and play with the sounds in words, which prepares them for learning to read and write. Our Heggerty lessons for these first four weeks always start off with rhyming!
Our Literacy block began with singing the ABCs. Then children were excited to meet our first two Lively Letter characters. Lively Letters is a curriculum for teaching phonics, or the sounds that make up words. You will notice as we progress through the curriculum this year that we will not only be teaching the children individual sounds but digraphs and blends as well. We will often be teaching the children pairs of sounds. One of which is the noisy sound (where your voice is on) and one of which is the quiet sound (where your voice is off). You can ask your child how to tell if your voice is on or off tonight! We will be demonstrating the process at curriculum night on September 29th.
p - quiet lip puffing sound
The first thing I see in their letter is the line with the lips, telling me to put your lips together! The circle is at the top to remind us of the tall quiet parent is always very quiet so their baby can sleep. We keep our voices off and puff out air.
b - noisy lip puffing sound
The line with the closed lips comes first, so as soon as you see that, put your lips together! See how this circle is down low? This is the little baby, and babies are very noisy, aren't they? That reminds us to turn our voices on!
Today we also worked on building our first letter using our Handwriting Without Tears pieces! HWT teaches capitol letters first in a developmental sequence based on stroke complexity, rather than traditional alphabetical order. The program groups uppercase letters into three main progression categories from easiest to most complex:
Vertical and Horizontal Line Letters: L, F, E, H, T, I (Easiest strokes, mastered first)
Circular and Curved Letters: C, O, Q, G, S, J, D, P, B, R (Introduces curves and semi-circles)
Diagonal Line Letters: K, A, N, M, V, W, X, Y, Z (Most advanced, requiring diagonal strokes and crossing the midline)
So today we built, traced, and wrote capitol L. We worked two at a time today as this is a process that is new to the children and the many steps can feel overwhelming at first. Working two children at a time helps the process feel less challenging and the teachers can offer more assistance when needed. Below you will find the charts for how we form letters using the HWT curriculum.
At the end of the day Georgia chose Penelope Rex vs The New Kid for our closing meeting story.
Classroom Explorations
Today we did our very first self portraits! It is a JK tradition to do monthly self portraits. The benefits of drawing self portraits are many at this age! It builds self awareness, builds confidence, improves fine motor skills, encourages creativity, develops observation skills, and encourages self expression! And more! We will put the completed self portraits into a binder that the children can take home in June. It is always so amazing to watch how the portraits change and progress over time!
In addition to monthly self portraits the children could:
enjoy snack
read books in book loft with teachers or friends
play in our glittery water sensory table with gems, beads, basters, scoopers, nets, and jars
bead at the trapezoid table
explore slime in our sensory trays
work on season puzzles before meeting
build with Legos on the rug
build with Magnatiles and gnomes on the light table
play in pretend
play in the dollhouse
use paint crayons and flower and butterfly stickers at the easel
craft and create at the drawing table
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