NEWSLETTER

This week we extended our exploration of ourselves and each other to include our indoor and outdoor school environment. 

Our first exploration was the inside of our school. The children have walked the halls to specials before, but have never really gotten the chance to stop and look at all the things that they see along the way. We also wanted to point out certain rooms that they will visit during their time at LCDS and identify what the purpose of each room was. We did this indoor exploration while the rest of the school was in assembly so that the kids could talk and ask questions as we walked. This is a very important piece of any exploration! 

The next day we extended our exploration to include our outdoor school environment. Since this is the first year of school, we needed to see what was out there on our campus! We began on our porch and looped around the entire school. As we walked the children pointed out what they saw and asked questions about what they were not familiar with. We asked them to identify what they were seeing as well, which made it an engaging and exciting conversation! 

After the explorations...

The next day we revisited the experience by looking at the pictures. Once the projector turned on and when the pictures were spread out on the table, the children immediately went to them, pointed at each picture and started talking about our adventure. This began our discussion of what we did, what we saw and what we thought about it. We identified the objects and discussed what we saw again, and then labels were introduced. As the objects were verbally identified, we wrote the label and then read it out loud. This was the first introduction to words corresponding with pictures and objects that the children identify. We will repeat this process throughout the year to reinforce that there are words for each object they identify, and they can read and match them. Each picture cue sparked a memory, explanation or label from the children, and they expanded on their descriptions as they viewed them. This oral language experience was guided completely by the children, which made it relevant and important to them. 

What evolved was a preschool version of The Language Experience Approach. We do this often in preschool because it is so natural and so valuable to the children's language and literacy development. This literacy approach is where a teacher and students:  

In preschool the writing is the teacher labeling the images in the pictures as the students orally identify them. Teachers also write down some of the descriptions in the children's words. The next day we revisit our adventure again and see how much the children remember and can describe. We review the matching labels and pictures and "read" the labels out loud together. 

Our Indoor Campus Adventure

MPR PE

BATHROOM

WATER BOTTLE FILLER

POLICE OFFICER

MUSIC ROOM

LIBRARY

HEALTH SUITE

KITCHEN

HALLWAY    LOCKERS

MAIN OFFICE

MS. BROWN

Revisiting our Indoor Adventure

We used the large screen to view the pictures and describe what we saw. Then we labeled each photo with a post it. 

The next day we matched the written labels to the printed pictures. 

When examining the picutures on the table a few children decided that they needed to get a closer look at the details. They brought the magnifying glasses out and passed them around so everyone can examine the pictures more closely. What a great idea! 

Exploring Our Outdoor Campus

PLAYGROUND

ROCKS

GARDEN

TENNIS COURTS

SOCCER NETS

SCHOOL BUS

SCARECROW

FLAG

FLAG POLE

PLAQUE       NOTE

FRONT OF THE SCHOOL

BASKETBALL HOOP

Revisiting our Outdoor Adventure

For this revisiting experience we viewed the pictures on the table and described what we saw and experienced. Then we went through each one and as the children described the picture we chose the appropriate word to label it. As the word was said out loud the writing of it under the picture was modeled for the children. This action shows the children that the words they say can be written down and then read back. 

Some information about the LEA:

Early language learners benefit from rich tasks that provide them with ample opportunities to hear, see, use and manipulate language in contextualised, purposeful ways. In the traditional Language Experience Approach (LEA) teachers use a shared experience - often involving photographs/images of that experience - as a prompt to collectively write a text with the learners. This text - often a series of photographs/images with captions - becomes a text that the group reads, re-reads, revises and extends. The language experience approach (LEA) is a whole language approach that promotes reading and writing through the use of personal experiences and oral language. It effectively helps develop learners' print awareness, since learners see the direct connection between images and words. It effectively connects known vocabulary and new vocabulary with print words, since the experience and image(s) correlate with words in the written caption(s).