My School & Me
Connecting Learning, Focus Texts, & Our School
During the first few months of school, Kindergartners engaged in a unit of study titled: My School and Me. During this time they explored a number of big books, nursery rhymes, and literacy experiences to develop their sense of self within the context of the school environment. As we prepared to conclude our study, the Kindergartners came together to create a culminating project which would represent personal connections to our school and the people within it.
What is an Expert: Asking Who, What, and Where?
Songs help us to engage and wonder about big ideas and questions.
Essential Questions:
What does it mean to be an expert?
How do people learn new things?
What if everyone was good at the same things?
Capturing our Thinking
In Kindergarten work together to communicate and record our thinking in different ways. Through a variety of experiences, we took time to consider the different people in our school, special roles they play, and where we may find them practicing their expertise.
Collaborative Creation
In order to create a very special class book, children worked simultaneously in each classroom utilizing Google Slides. Each class was responsible for designated pages on which students helped to move images of school experts into the proper setting. They then added appropriate text to match the image. Our focus text: School Days from our Shared Reading big book series offered a perfect model for our book creation.
The school must be a genuine form of active community life, instead of a place set apart in which to learn lessons.
-John Dewey