Johnny Appleseed, Personal Narratives, & Reading with Friends

Fall is one of my favorite seasons to teach! I love getting to spend time talking & learning about pumpkins, Halloween, Thanksgiving, and APPLES!  I just love teaching apples!

I've finally finished my beginning of the year assessments and will finally get to start pulling some small groups next week.  We still aren't quite ready to start reading small groups (we're still a little needy during center time)...so instead next week I'll be pulling small groups to work on some Johnny Appleseed writing.  Many of my kiddos are convinced they CANNOT write - my job this week: convince them that they can!

One big adjustment for me moving down to kindergarten this year has definitely been in teaching writing.  So many of my babes can totally write but are too scared to even try!  My hope is that over the next couple of weeks I'll start seeing some words and phrases to go with the beautiful illustrations we've got going on now.

We are also talking this week during our Reading Workshop about reading with friends! We are partnering with a 4th grade class at my school once a week to have "Reading Buddies," so I want to make sure we're ready.  They sure do love to talk - now to just get them talking about BOOKS!

We will be completing some of the lessons from Kid Adsit's great reading workshop units! I have loved teaching her reading workshops! 

We will also begin our personal narratives unit this week! I've really been building up that we are going to be "making books" and they are so excited to get started! I can't wait to watch to continue to grow!