Project Work

Earth Day:  Poetry and Art
June 12, 2014

This spring we celebrated the Earth, our environment and poetry!  At the beginning of April, we drew pictures of the Earth, wrote poems, made promises for how to care for our planet and illustrated our work.  We shared our pieces at this year's Multicultural Festival at Williston Central School!

 

We learned about geography, how to care for our planet & poetry writing!  We loved sharing with our families at Multicultural Festival!

Alphabet Books
April 20, 2014

There is much to learn about the alphabet:  letter names and sounds, the sequence of the letters, upper and lower case, different forms of print, reading letters and writing letters.  So kindergarten students spent some time this year creating their own Alphabet Books.  We started by sorting pictures to compare words that begin with different sounds.  Then glued our words into our books, labeled the words and finally added color.  We learned a lot of new words and took our books home to share with our families! 

Sorting Picture Words

Adding Pictures in Our Alphabet Books

Writing Labels and Coloring

Kindergarten Literacy Booklets
 March 31, 2014

Putting together and reading booklets helps young learners to expand their vocabulary while exploring content area concepts through themes.  A theme we talk about a lot in kindergarten is the weather and seasons.  What does Groundhog See?  is a fun booklet that explores Groundhog Day, that makes it easy to see how sunlight makes shadows, and that helps us to start noticing changes outside.  Together we cut out the booklet pages, followed directions to complete each page and then practiced reading our books to our groundhog puppets.   We also talked about some facts about groundhogs like where they live and why they hibernate.  We are proud of our work!

My Book & Puppet

Making a Groundhog Puppet

A Puppet Show
March 31, 2014

Right before winter break a group of students performed a student written reader's theater as a puppet show in their classroom:  Ice Goes Home.  To write this, we had to learn about the elements of story grammar and fiction writing.  We then had to make decisions about creating our puppets and backdrops for our settings.  Finally, we rehearsed as a group to make sure our reading sounded like talking.  The performance was a hit!

Characters, Setting, Problem, Solution

Rehearsing Together

Pushes and Pulls
December 20, 2013

Brain Pop Jr. has terrific videos on science topics.  While studying the theme Force and Motion a small group of ELL students looked a little closer at Pushes and Pulls.  In their Pushes and Pulls Notebook students learned vocabulary words such as position, motion and friction, they drew items that the wind pushes easily, sorted objects into things that are usually pushed or pulled and wrote up a short experiment.  At the end of the unit they reflected on what they learned and liked, here are some student comments below.

I liked learning that you pull a bow and arrow.

I learned the word friction and used in in my science writing.

 

Kindergarten Personal Readers
December 20, 2013

The start of Kindergarten is always exciting.  For many students it is their first time learning the alphabet, letter names and letter sounds.  By the Holiday Break students have gained the literacy skills they need to be ready for reading groups in the new year.  It is amazing to witness this process every year and this year has been no different!  The My ELL Personal Reader is a collection of poems, picture sorts and student writing that can be taken home and reread many times to many people.  These students were eager to take theirs home to share with family.

This is my favorite page because it is different shapes.

This is my favorite page because I like the alphabet.

Fall Projects 2013

Here at Allen Brook School I teach students across the entire school.  As the ELL teacher, I support students in all content areas.  There is always a big variety of project work occurring in the ELL room!  This fall has been no different.  Here are some highlights!

Talking About Feelings:  Here a Kindergarten student learns to talk about how he feels.
http://youtu.be/geJSZt-Mexc

Learning About Insects:  Here a Grade 1 student shares her model of an insect and tells about it's parts.  
http://youtu.be/X4YVNGRlK5Q

Vermont State Workshop:  Grades 1 and 2 students studied the state of Vermont for six weeks.  We took a virtual field trip to the State House and then were interviewed for a newscast.  Click on this link to hear the newscast The Golden Dome.  
http://youtu.be/o7k6Sl7b70M 

The unit culminated in creating a Vermont postcard.  We wrote messages and mailed our postcards to our families.

Vermont State Postcards on Display in Library