During our 'How We Express Ourselves' unit of inquiry, Denzil worked on creating his own stories. Here is one that he created in his stories journal. He used his drawings skills and his knowledge of letters and sounds to record his story with illustrations and writing. Ms. Alison thinks this is an example of Denzil's best work because he took risks to invent stories using his creativity and imagination.
"First there were monsters. Then there were three more. They drove race cars. Then they roared. Then they weren't looking and they crashed."
Denzil's favourite part of our 'How We Express Ourselves' unit of inquiry was our field trip to the Big Eyes, Big Minds Singapore International Children's Film Festival. He wanted to include this experience in his portfolio because of his favourite film 'The Paperbag Boy'. He said: "Paperbag Boy had a paper bag on his head. It was funny because people don't wear paper bags unless they have lost their teeth. Then I did a good job of drawing the Paperbag Boy."
Denzil is beginning to recognize basic sight words, sound out new words, and use the illustrations to help him read. This activity shows that he is knowledgeable because he is applying his understanding of letter-sound relationships and the strategies we use during shared reading to read independently.
Denzil said: "I can read this book because I use the pictures to help me."
Denzil has been working on consolidating his alphabet knowledge and gaining confidence to apply it consistently in his writing. After sorting picture cards of words that start with the sounds 'b', 'm', 'r', and 's' in his word study journal, he worked with a friend to label picture cards for 'r' and 'm' words using sticky notes:
Denzil used this photo of him and his friends playing to collect ideas for a story. He illustrated the story and recorded his voice telling the story using the iPad app Draw & Tell.
As emergent writers, we are always taking risks in writing. We are experimenting with sounds and letter formations, as well as pencil grip and different writing tools. As the year continues we are learning to make more and more letter and sound connections to express our ideas through writing. In our journals we do our best to add labels, descriptions, or short stories to our drawings. We also participate in free writing sessions where we write whatever we want for one to two minutes and use the writing centre and class mailbox to communicate through writing during free play.
Here is some of Denzil's journal and free writing work. Denzil confidently takes chances in writing and works hard to record his ideas, using his own knowledge and sound and alphabet charts for support. His journal work shows that he can correctly identify many beginning and ending consonant sounds as well as some vowels. He is having fun experimenting with directionality and spacing. Keep it up Denzil!
In K1AC, we love the story Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See? by Bill Martin Jr. Students often ask for the story to be re-read and it is always a popular choice for independent reading.
Last week Denzil started reading the book aloud during an independent reading session. The video below demonstrates Denzil's development as an emergent reader as he practices "memorized reading" using his memory of the story, beginning concept of word and print, and the illustrations as prompts.
We read a book called "And Here's To You" by David Elliott, which talked about all of the things the author loves. We had a discussion about the things we love and recorded our ideas with words, drawings, and voices.
Last night Denzil got to thinking...he wanted to borrow a book! So, with the help of his parents, he wrote Ms. Alison a letter, which is exactly what we've been learning how to do to in the classroom.
This morning Denzil didn't take much time deciding on "The Gruffalo" by Julia Donaldson which we read in class yesterday. What a great book with wonderful rhymes!