_{CURRICULUM COLLABORATIONS - LITERACY}

_{A note from Classroom Support Co-chairs}

The school day of a Maple Street School child is filled with rich educational and social experiences. We thought of Curriculum Collaborations early in the year, with the idea that it would give families some insight on the happenings of the classroom.  With teachers, parents, and administrators getting together (virtually or otherwise) to observe, write, document  and talk about specific areas of learning, our hope is that CC can enhance children's learning experiences by building a connection between home and school.

Enjoy!

Cindy Lang and Kali Paguirigan

Classroom Support Co-chairs

A note from our Director

Dear Families,

Each time I am touring prospective families at Maple Street, I am asked, do you teach reading and writing?  How do you teach reading and writing?

My answer is always yes, but not formally.  I wonder what their vision is of teaching reading and writing. Maybe they are hoping for a Laura Ingalls Wilder one room school house phonics type teacher on the Brooklyn Prairie, or more of a Sesame Street letter and number of the day with silly songs about word's that start with O or the number 8.

I want to answer we teach reading and writing because we are reading and writing, but that sounds a little too much like you are what you eat. But it's true, you are what you read and write!  At Maple Street we read stories in big groups, small groups, and one on one daily.   We write, stamp, and cut letters, we rhyme, and listen to the sounds, and that is who we are. We don't teach reading and writing formally, rather we integrate it into everything until it is so exciting and a part of our day, that children connect letters to symbols, symbols to words, learn how words move across the page, how they can write their name, and more.

Wendy Cole

Director

Literacy in the Stars

Questions for the children:
What is your favorite book?
What book do you like most that your teacher reads?
What is something silly about the book you are reading?

Miles:
"Mary had a little lamb, she took the lamp in the snow, that is silly."

Yoav:
"I like Madagascar.  I read it at home with daddy."

Joaquin:
"The very busy spider.  The spider spins her web.  She is happy.  And she talks to other animals."

Kadim:
"Mommy reads me books about trains.  The Q train.  There was a bird on the Q train.  And there was the B train.  My daddy takes me on the B train."

Samuel:
"Oh, No David.  He gets a time out."

Literacy in the Waves

by Vernessa Felix

Literacy is a very important part of our classroom and it is incorporated in many ways. Awareness of literacy can begin by just reading to a child. Reading is a constant in the Waves class. Very often there is a teacher, parent or an intern sitting in a quiet corner or at the cafe table reading to a group of children. Just recently, we realized that almost every week there is a new vocabulary word that is defined for the children. An example of a recent vocabulary word is ostracize.  This word is in the story Abiyoyo, and Mariama’s dad brought it to the attention of the class,  These vocabulary words do not always come from the teachers or the books that we read, but also from the children.

Whole group discussion plays a huge role also in building literacy in the Waves class. A meeting is held three times a day where there is a lesson being taught, a story being read and a time to reflect on the day. During these discussions, each child is given an opportunity to recall from their memory and share a prior experience and making a connection with heat the discussion. At this age children are beginning to use tenses and notice grammar in their speech. Today Samang said, "my grandma is bringing scarfes for the imagination station." Instead pointing out that she added an extra “es” on the plural,  we often just repeat what is said using the appropriate tense.  This way the child can hear the difference in what they have said, and what was heard. Very often they too repeat the correct tense.

In the Waves class there is phonemic (sound) awareness all around, from listening to rhyming words and letter sound recognition. For example, when transitioning from story time to lunch, we often call the children by saying,"this persons name begins with letter s and ends with letter e." The children begin to look around the group to see which persons name matches the given clue.

This is just a taste of how literacy is incorporated in the classroom, there are many more ways in which it comes into our daily routines, but we'll leave that for future ...curriculum collaborations.

Literacy in the Roots

"She falls down the hole and

she chases the rabbit. It's funny because she shrinks and then gets bigger and bigger up to the ceiling." - Bella

Thank you to the Classroom Liasons for contributing to this project by gathering information and interviewing our littlest readers. Curriculum Collaborations will be coming out with its next installment shortly after the Spring break.

LETS PLAY BROOKLYN!!

Maple Street Summer Camp 2011

to download the brochure click here

for more information: summer@maplestreetschool.org