Question of the Day

Question of the Day is a standard entry routine in my classroom. Each morning upon arrival, the students answer a question that a staff member has written. Whenver possible I try to incorporate pictures and drawings. Occasionally as the year progresses I may have children come up with a question. Inspiration for the questions can from a variety of sources: 

• Likes and dislikes. Using the simple "Do you like" format can help children begin to recognize sight words. I also like to use "Which one do you like better" as  well
•  Questions that have definite answers such as "Do you have a dog?" "Did you walk to school?" The children like questions that relate to their life and these questions can prompt discussions among the students as they enter the room. 
• Questions inspired by stories that we have read. We will often photocopy pictures from books and ask questions about the characters or how the children might react to events in the book if they were real.

Survey Formats:
Checkmarks and X's: I really liked this format in my first few years of teaching kindergarten. I thought it was a nice and simple way that allowed all students to access the survey. You would be surprised how easily even a 3 year old can learn to draw a check mark or x. Cons: Although this method is fun for the students and helps develop some emergent fine motor skills, it's not a great way to teach data management concepts. Because the size of the checks and x's can vary, it's difficult for the children to get a sense of the concepts of "more" and "less." Also, I don't think the method transfers well to higher grade levels in which the children learn to do tally charts or other kinds of graphs. Having said all that, I do find that since I stopped using this kind of Morning Message, I see less children making their own survey's during playtime. I think this kind of survey is easy for a child to duplicate independently. See samples below.

Surveys that Use Names: A few of the Early Childhood Educators that I have worked with really insisted on surveys that incorporate children's names. Name recognition is in the Ontario Curriculum and so it is a skill that MUST acquire. However, for some reason I resisted this kind of survey. I really am not sure why. Maybe I thought it was too "old school" kindergarten. I really would advise any teacher doing this graph to use name cards on magnets like I have as opposed to having children write their names as I've seen done in some classrooms. You really want all children to be able to participate and not all children will be able to write their names with competence, especially at the beginning of the year.

Other fun ideas: I've seen lots of neat ideas to change up this morning routine. You can provide connecting cubes, plastic links, shower curtain rings, marbles. The children can take one item and place it in the clear container which corresponds with their answer. Using these concrete objects can provide opportunities to use rich math vocabulary each day. Use words such as: estimation, more, less, most, least, how many, how many more etc. Here are two simple ideas that allow children to explore data management in a hands-on way: 

As the year progresses, we often move from asking children simple questions about their preferences, likes and dislikes to encouraging students to make connections to literature: 

Here we asked the students to remember a read-aloud from a previous day. They had to remember which character was stronger: the troll or the 3rd Billy Goat Gruff. Changing the answer from a simple "yes" or "no" to a detail from a story encourages the children to think before answering. 

Estimating the results of the Question of the Day and then counting them can be worked into any circle time throughout the day or even revisited in a small group setting with students who need more explicit instruction. At beginning of the year, I do recommend doing this in the morning because little hands might find tampering with the concrete items too tempting to resist. You might go to revisit the survey later in the day, only to find that someone has dumped all the rings/links off and smudged the question. The joys and challenges of working with little ones! 

Still Life Painting

Some days we crack open our beautiful things jars and the children get creative with found objects. Process, not product. But other days, we set up beautiful and organized invitations to paint what they see. We choose materials with purpose and paint colours that capture (as best as we can) nature. Flowers, pussy willows, branches are all good subjects for still life art in Kindergarten.

Sometimes I put out popsicle or kebab sticks to help children to create lines for branches. It is also interesting to see how children use tools other than paintbrushes.

Gardening in Kindergarten

Most teachers do the obligatory bean seed in a Styrofoam cup each spring as a way to learn about plants. There is nothing wrong with that but I really think you can do so much more with gardening in the classroom. Growing plants in the classroom AND in a concrete playground with no shade presents some challenges. Each school and classroom have their own limitations. Some teachers are in rooms with no windows or no sinks with running water. I sympathize because I've certainly had ups and downs.

I like to start off gardening with seed exploration. The students often collect apple, pepper, orange seeds from their snacks. I would also recommend collecting seeds from flowers in the fall. I am a seed hoarder so I have many seeds at home that I can bring in to put out on a tray for children to examine, compare and discuss. 

I am a big fan of starting veggies and flowers from seed but doing so presents a few problems. Timing is important but also your local climate and weather can affect the success of starting seeds. I make the mistake of starting seeds too early almost every year because I get so excited about spring arriving. Seedlings need a good light source or they get spindly and weak. In this picture I had students filling a large pot to plant spinach seeds.

The seeds did grow but because I had them indoors too long, the minute I brought them outside into the full sun, they shriveled up and died. It was very upsetting!

Before our parent council bought us a planter, we grew a lot of plants in plastic pots that the parents donated. I ended up having to bring these plants in and out each day when the spring weather was unpredictable. It was a lot of work, but the plants got direct sunlight all day and exposure to the wind and elements helped to strengthen their stalks. 

A few years ago the Early Childhood Educator I work with led the students in planting lettuce, beets and radishes in our newly installed planter. We had a warm spring and were able to sow the seeds outdoors in early April. By June the students were harvesting and eating radishes and lettuce! Beets take quite awhile to grow and need a cold snap before they can be harvested.

Other ideas:

One year I experimented with bulbs. We tried growing them in a variety of mediums (rocks, soil, water) and the students observed the results. I like these glass pots that I found at a second-hand store. It allows the students to see the roots. 

Tips: 

• Ask parents to donate supplies or Canadian Tire money so you aren't spending your own money on this venture
• If you don't have good lighting in your room, ask another teacher if you can borrow their window sill or use window sills in other parts of the school 
• Talk to your students about protecting the plants at recess! Children often cannot resist digging in dirt and this will disturb delicate seedlings. I once had to re-plant carrot seeds three times because of this! 
• Make friends with your school custodian! Gardening with soil is very messy and the dirt can stain floors
• Get a wagon or dolly to help you move pots in and out when the weather is unpredictable
• Get children involved as much as possible with watering, weeding and harvesting
• Pay attention to germination timelines listed on the seed packages. Some vegetables and flowers grow faster. We've had success with Nasturtiums, Cosmos, beans, radishes and lettuce.
• Sunflowers take FOREVER to bloom. Start them very early indoors and move them outside once the weather is warm. They might bloom by the end of June if you are lucky, but chances are the students won't see flowers until they are return in September.