What Stories Will You Create Today? (Teacher Talk)

Today on the blog I am featuring something completely different than my outfits, style or family news.  As some of your know I am currently working as an Early Years and Literacy K-3 consultant.  I've always known that I wanted to be a teacher, in fact when I was 10 I told my parents that my goal in life was to be a "part-time Kindergarten teacher"!  Several years later I did become a Kindergarten teacher and my passion and desire to learn about how children develop their language skills have led me to the job I currently hold.  Below I am sharing some of my learning regarding oral language and how to connect it to literacy growth for children Prek - Grade 3.  Hope you enjoy this segment called Teacher Talk.  😍

 



 

Why is oral language critical to young children's development? 

 

Research would indicate that children who have a well developed vocabulary and oral language skills tend to:

1.  Understand complex language structures.

2.  Develop enhanced vocabulary to refer to while reading and understand how to differentiate between multiple meanings.

3.  Establish rules for speaking for a variety of purposes. 

4.  Have a strong foundation for learning to read (predict sentence structures and connect to   words that make sense from prior knowledge).

5.  Oral language builds a strong foundation for reading comprehension. 

 

Story stones provide children with an opportunity to engage in hands on literacy learning, through play and exploration, while also connecting the reading, writing, listening, and speaking strands together.  For younger children who are  gaining 2500 words per/year (Roskos, Tabors & Lenhart), retelling stories in their own words is a powerful way to encourage new language and sentences structures to be practiced and explored.  As children gain a better understanding of story structures (characters, setting, problem, solution, and ending) creating storytelling  invitations encourages children to explore their  own imaginations and to create stories.  If introducing this concept to children, encourage them to  practice telling their stories orally several times before you extend it to writing.  During the writing process have students use storyboards with pictures or pictures and text.  As a celebration of their learning, in older grades,  you might invite students to invite  family members for a story time in the classroom, building storytelling videos or sharing their stories with care partners. 

 

 Possible theme kits to create or books to retell:

 

1.  The Mitten by Jan Brett (story retelling)

2.  Bear Snores On by Karma Wilson (story retelling kit)

3.  Honouring the Buffalo : A Plains Cree Legend by Ray Lavallee (story retelling kit)

4.  Farm Creative Storytelling Kit

5.  Castel/Kingdom Creative Storytelling Kit

6.  Winter Animals & Forest Creative Storytelling Kit

Please feel free to leave your comments and ideas so that we can collaborate!!!

 

REFERENCES:

Flynn, E. E. (2016). Language-Rich Early Childhood Classroom: Simple but Powerful Beginnings. The Reading Teacher, 70(2), 159-166.

 

Jamison, L. (2011). Read, write, play, learn: Literacy instruction in today's kindergarten. Newark, DE: International Reading Association. 

 

Roskos, Tabors & Lenhart (2004).  Oral Language and Early Literacy in Preschool: Talking, Reading, and Writing.  International Reading Association.

 

The Early Catastrophe: The 30 Million Word Gap by Age 3. (n.d.). Retrieved November 28, 2016 



DIY: Musical Wall

This is such an easy DIY project friends. If I can do it, anyone can.  I am not usually that crafty but as I am getting older I am becoming willing to step out of my comfort zone more often.   This spring I was looking for some new pictures for PWIM (Picture Word Inductive Model that our school division uses for language arts and a beginning place for inquiry in K-Gr.3) I came across an outdoor symphony photograph, that we got permission to use for educational purposes, and  I loved that these children are exploring music in an non-traditional classroom and in a non-traditional way (a mix of real and created instruments).  Right away I knew I wanted to bring that idea of music, the outdoors and non-traditional instruments to our youngest learners to explore and hopefully be inspired to learn and create new ways of creating music.   

Materials:

 

-palette                                          -xylophone                                                   -cheese grater

-screws                                          -wooden spoons                                           -egg beater

-nails                                             -plastic container                                           -metal bowl

-hammer                                       -cheese grater                                                -metal colander

-power drill                                   -pot                                                               -soup cans   

-utility hooks     

-twine                         

 -an item that I found at Value Village but don't know what it is, but it makes a great sound!

 

 ****Anything you can find that would make a unique sound is a good buy.  I was really hoping to find a wooden wind chime but no luck.

The set-up, assembly and clean-up took maybe an hour, so you don't need a lot of time.  

 

First step:   I took off the xylophone pieces from the instrument and string them on twine.  Be sure to think about the length of the twine so that they all hang at the same length once you place them on the palette.  I used nails to hang the xylophone pieces off of.  

Second step: I lined everything up on the palette to see what arrangement would work best.  I had to rearrange it a few times.

Third step:  Start working!  I used a power drill for the very first time in my life and it made me feel STRONG, EMPOWERED, and HANDY.  

 

Fourth step:  Clean up.

 

Fifth step:  HAVE FUN!!!!  My girls were thrilled with the wall and they created musical patterns, concerts, incorporated dance, etc.  Let's just say it's a new favorite toy and who cares that it makes a ton of noise, it's outside.

This musical wall I am taking to work to give away as a prize for new teachers but I have promised the girls that we can go shopping and purchase new items so that we can make another one to keep in our backyard.  Total cost was approximately $40. If you are a teacher you could easily give parents a list of possible items that you might need and I  bet everyone would be happy to bring at least one item.    I am actually considering making one for our nephew as a birthday present, something different and unconventional.