Since returning to school in January, the Pizza Donuts have been fascinated by making connections to one another’s names! This began during small groups when we read The Name Jar by Yangsook Choi, a story about a little girl who comes to America from Korea, and the other kids in her class cannot pronounce her name. We discussed the importance of all of our names, then did a name graphing activity where we counted how many letters were in each friend’s name, and asked friends which letters they had in common with other classmates! This transpired to practicing writing our own names, and the curiosity about others’ names sparked further. We rearranged some of the Silver Room furniture, and we repurposed our old “animal” nametags on the wall of the writing center for a permanent name exhibition. The children have been exploring a variety of opportunities to practice writing and drawing like a new set of winter themed surveys, portraits work with Brenna, and white board exploration.
In our other January weeks in small groups, we introduced the Handwriting Without Tears lines and curves to help the children begin to understand how to form certain letters. The children practiced rolling these shapes with Play-Doh, and then made our own line and curve alphabet with loose parts.
This month we also introduced our weekly writing and drawing journals to the Pizza Donuts, where the children will be asked to draw a picture weekly and dictate their words to a teacher. Some weeks, this will be a free-draw experience, while others, we may ask them to draw a more specific picture or ask a prompt question of the day. As the children become ready, we may also ask them to attempt to write their own words. Could you start a weekly journal at home? We look forward to sharing this visual representation of progress during our spring conferences!
