Donut Shop

The donut shop article made me think very reflectively about my current practice with my kindergarteners.  We are having very productive reading and writing workshops.  The kids are reading with partners, they are discussing their connections, retelling stories, choosing their own books, starting to recognize words in familiar and repeating texts, choosing thier own topics, and writing books to be placed in their reading workshop bags.  Their literacy experiences are based in their interests and shared experiences.  I feel like these experiences constitute 'learning in context'.  But, the donut shop article took this concept to a whole different level.  To begin to expand the students' writing and planning to something even more authentic than choosing their own books, I gave the children journals to journal their 'choice time' experiences and plans.  Choice time is a time in the morning where kids are encouraged to learn through play.  There are blocks, dinosaurs, legos, a dramatic play area, a dollhouse, art supplies, magnetic letters, planes, cars, and a train set.  During this time the students plan what they are going to do during the period and then carry out their plans.  Journaling what they do during this time will serve multiple purposes.  It will show each student's writing over time, it will also help them to document their plans in order to discuss and expand on them in the future.  To me, this seems to fit some of the purposes of the donut shop; learning from eachother, working together towards common goals, and documenting plans through literacy.  Any thoughts on how to expand this idea? 

They are writing!

I have had a wonderful last couple of weeks with my kindergarten class in writing!  The visual we have been using in class about 'the space between invention and convention' has been on my mind a lot as my kids are writing in writer's workshop.  One little girl knows all of her letter sounds and freely writes stories (mostly pattern books because those are the ones she is reading also).  I found her sounding out 'shell'.  She was just sitting there 'shhhhhhhhhh'...'ssssshhhhhhhhhhh'.  She truned to me and said, 's' sounds like 'sssss', but I need to write 'shhhhh'.  She was ready to be introduced to the digraph sh.  We talked about some other words that use that sound and she was off; she wrote about shells and sheep and ships that day in her 'I like' book!  :)