Busy Day

Today we had an extremely busy day.   To start the day the children were assessed using our districts IGDI's assessment(Individual Growth and Development Indicators).  This assessment was given by the school reading specialist, her assistant, the school psychologist, and myself.  We assess the children in three areas; picture naming, rhyming, and alliteration.

Today our read aloud was Dear Zoo by Rod Campbell.  This book is about a boy who wrote  to the zoo wanting a pet. They send various different animals, all of which prove unsuitable for one reason or another the elephant is too big, the lion too fierce, the giraffe too tall, the monkey too naughty. Finally, the zoo sent a puppy: "He was perfect!"  During centers the children each received a journal page.  On it they drew a picture of an animal that they would like from the zoo.  They then provided an adjective that described the animal and why they couldn't keep it.  One child wrote to the zoo to send a tiger, but he was too scary.  Another children wrote to the zoo to send a seal, but he was too splashy.  While another child wrote to the zoo to send a giraffe, but he was too big.

At my center the children made a giraffe position book.  On each page there was a sentence that told where the giraffe was;  Giraffe is under the sun.  After reading the sentence together the children had to glue their giraffe in the correct spot.  Next year you will hear a lot about the Wisconsin Common Core Standards.  One of the math standards is to explore, recognize and describe shapes and spatial relations.  Spatial relations includes the terms under, between, above, and below, all of which were covered in our giraffe book.