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Djinn/Ca/K - Welcome to the ECE Chatroom. Tonight we are discussing the Daily News or Morning Message. Let's start with how you are implementing it in your classroom. At this point in time I have not begun to share the pen. I think out loud as I write and my students "help" me write the message.
Addie k/mo - Djinn, that is what we are doing too....i think aloud, sometimes the kids echo spell, sometimes i write a word and leave out a letter and they tell me what is missing and sometimes a child spells a word aloud and everyone echoes
Jane*K*MO - My reading literacy program has a suggested morning message that relates to the story that I will read to them later
Djinn - Jane - How long is your message?
Jane*K*MO - The literacy program has one or two sentences, I usually add something personal for the class
Djinn - Some time in Jan. I will start sharing the pen and we will create sentences about a child in our class.
Addie k/mo - jane, do you have the morning message ready and read it together, or do you write it together?
Jane*K*MO - Right now, I am having the children identify letters or words they recognize
Addie k/mo - Djinn, that is about what we will do also, jan or Feb., kids will begin doing the writing with class support.
Djinn - We create the sentence together.
Jane*K*MO - Right now, I have the message on the chart, but may share the pen and dictation later
Djinn - Is anyone doing anything that is going just right?
Addie k/mo - we compose ours together. the first sentence is always "today is day, month, date, year" and then we write a sentence about the leader. this time through it was "name likes ___________"
Djinn - Addie- I have been doing mine on a white board. Is anyone keeping theirs? and what are you doing with it?
Jane*K*MO - I like the ideas that the message and mode of using it can change as the children grow'
Kathleen - My kids are using dry erase boards to write (copy mostly) the daily sentence/s.
Djinn - Great idea Kathleen
Jane*K*MO - I use a laminated chart, and erase it at the end of the day
Addie k/mo - my kids really like to guess the missing letters. i will say, "ok, i am going to write the word today and i am going to leave out a letter. don't say what it is, until the whole word is up here so everyone will have time to think" then i might write "t day" and point at the empty spot and they say "o!"
Kathleen - I'm asking my students to attempt to write key words before I post the word cards. We talk about their "visual memory".
Addie k/mo - we do ours on chart paper. i let the leader of that day take them home every so often. the kids like this, don't know about the parents though...daily news wallpaper! LOL
Jane*K*MO - some of my students copy words from the message for their journals
Djinn - I haven't started omitting letters yet, but will be my next step!
jo - I hang my news on the wall each day and then on Friday add a cover ,staple and put it in our class library
Chris/MD *1* - I use chart paper.
Djinn - Addie - I do this after Jan. They really love to take them home!
Djinn - JO- What a great idea!
Jack k/ak - I write my morning message on a white board, but each day the special person dictates news and we write this together. These I post on the wall for reading Around the Room, but at the end of the month I make them into a book that can be read any time.
Djinn - I love the book ideas! Great addition to class library.
Addie k/mo - another thing we do, i think we will start in a day or two when we start over on leaders is to write "miss or mr last name" instead of their first names. they feel really important and it gives them practice at recognizing their last names
mo - We call ours "Our Morning Message" and "Our Afternoon Message." (Two sessions of Kindergarten). Then we write together, Hello------- and Kindergarten friends. Today is,etc. Then that child gets to take it home and hang it up. The kids love to tell us where they hang it. I like the idea of leaving out letters. I will try that.
Jane*K*MO - I am having trouble having enough wall space to hang up my charts
Djinn - Great idea Addie. I wondered how I would start this in my room.
Chris/MD *1* - Jack, what do you write the news on?
Jack k/ak - Large white drawing paper.
Djinn - LOL Jane. Mine are hung on a chart stand - from hangers
Addie k/mo - i have mine hanging from hooks on a pegboard. the old ones are underneath. you can only see the previous day's news though, because they are stacked upon one another
Djinn - Addie- making them into a book would solve the space problem
Jane*K*MO - I have a motion detector in room and can't hang anything that will blow in air
jo - We also reread old newa to notice that sometimes we use the same words in different places,ets and the children enjoy puting wikki-sticks around Word Wall words like "is" and "my",etc
Djinn - Jane - what happens when your kinders are moving LOL
Djinn - Jo - I just love using wikki-sticks
Chris/MD *1* - I only have 1/2 of my old room from last year and have no space to hang much. I have one chart holder that has our poems and one white board to write on.
Jane*K*MO - Djinn, the alarm isn't on during the day
Addie k/mo - we use the same topic throughout all the leaders...the first time was "name is the leader", then "name likes ________". next we will do "miss/mr l.name can _________", "miss/mr. l.name went to __________"
Djinn - Wow Chris- Jane - just teasing
Jack k/ak - I set up my room so that the backs of some shelves, kitchen furniture etc. allow me more wall space.
Djinn - Great idea Addie- knew you's have great ideas to share!
Djinn - When do the rest of yuo start sharing the pen?
Djinn - you
Chris/MD *1* - We use the responsive classroom message. A greeting, followed by date and weather, any announcements and a short activity to review something that was taught.
Addie k/mo - then later they can pick whether or not to write first name or miss/mr last name and finish with said, "___________________." this introduces quotation marks. we also introduce ! at some point too and they can choose if they are just saying what they said or REALLY mean it!
jo - We start the first day
Djinn - We start in Jan. With a lot of class support. We generate a sentence about our special helper.
Jack k/ak - so do we.
Chris/MD *1* - I like the idea of sharing, but our message is supposed to be composed and up when the kids come in.
Jack k/ak - I mean, right away.
Djinn - I've been using verbal responses from the class - but at this point have not been having students write.
Addie k/mo - we started the news the very first day. i went really fast and didn't do as much thinking aloud!!! they wouldn't sit for it! LOL
Kathleen - Chris, who says your message has to be composed before the kids come in?
Djinn - LOL Addie. Now they really look for those capital letters and periods.
Jane*K*MO - our morning message is the starting point for my literacy lesson.
jo - This may sound strange but I find it easier for the children to write a story rather than a sentence. I think it;s because we talk in "stories" rather than in sentences. Any thoughts?
Addie k/mo - yes, djinn! and they are proud to know how to spell "is" and some of the days of the week...they like "noticing" things!!!!
Chris/MD *1* - We were a responsive classroom school supported by grant money. The grant ran out but we haven't changed. I think that I will as soon as my intern leaves on Thursday. I don't have literacy lessons. I teach Open Court.
Djinn - Jo - sounds like a great idea. Modeling any kind of sentence structure is wonderful.
Addie k/mo - we always look for a letter and circle it with a marker and underline a word with a different color marker
Jane*K*MO - jo, many of my first grader used to write a whole page sentence
Djinn - Jo -sounds like you are engaging them in the activity
jo - JANE. WHAT DO THEY WRITE NOW?
Jane*K*MO - Addie, I do that too. we count how many o's we have in the message . Or what ever letter we are working'
Addie k/mo - i love using the words "what do you notice?" (straight out of month by month for k) they "notice" more than we usually ask them to!!!
Djinn - Addie- My bible this year!!
Christina/K/Kingston - I teach K and would like to start a morning message. About how much time such I expect this will take. We do calendar, share a big book and then head to language/math centers.
Lisa - In our message we pick a letter that we are working on and count how many capital T's and how many lower case t's and then I write it out like an addition problem ex. 2 T's t's = 4 t's
Addie k/mo - my kids suggested that the leader get to pick what letter we will look for....i think i will let them when we start over, because they will have to analyze the message to choose a letter that is repeated several times
Djinn - Christina - mine takes 5 minutes right now - will be longer later in the year
Djinn - Lisa- I like that idea!
Jane*K*MO - Christina, I do my morning message right calendar. about 5-10 minutes
Addie k/mo - ours takes about 10 minutes
Chris/MD *1* - Djinn, your way takes less time then mine. I am going to try something different. I am pressed for minutes in the morning.
Addie k/mo - ours is right after math board (calendar) too!
Christina/K/Kingston - I feel the same way Chris - that is why I am wondering what exactly to do with the MM.
Addie k/mo - lisa, neat way to integrate math
Jack k/ak - Mine is also right after calander.
Djinn - We then begin to notice things about our sentence.
Chris/MD *1* - I have to teach Open Court which is our reading and language combined. It takes a good three hours.
Djinn - We talked about letters vs words and counted words etc.
Djinn - We talk about capitals and lower case and punctuation
Lisa - I was amazed the other day in center time another child wrote an addition problem in his story at the writing center so they really do start to pick up on it
jo - Chris, how do you feel about Open Court?
Jane*K*MO - Djinn, one of my K's went home and as the mom was reading a book to him, He said "OH, there are the talking marks" (quotation marks
Kathleen - The tendency to imitate adults is why it is so powerful for kids to see adults modeling writing, reading, etc.
Addie k/mo - we talk caps, l.c. and punc too! we talk about commas mean take a breath and a period is like a stopsign and means our sentence is over. they love quotation marks and exclamation points!!!!
Chris/MD *1* - I like the way they teach phonics. It is very structured, but it is also very fast. Tomorrow we do short o. That is the third vowel. We read a new story every day. It is too fast and i feel that i am on a tread mill and can't stop.
Kathleen - and they LOVE speech bubbles! (but that isn't relevent here, is it? :-/)
j - Are we talking morning meeting?
Addie k/mo - does anyone have a good way to work in question marks?????
Djinn - When you share the pen - how do you begin instruction?
Addie k/mo - kat, explain how you incorporate speech bubbles into the news
Kathleen - I ask "What will we do today?"
Addie k/mo - j, we are talking morning message/daily news
jo - Chris, my school used to have Open Court and I truly felt like I taught Open Court and not children
Djinn - Addie - i think I will start them tomorrow - asking a question of our Star of the Week.
Smiley - I lost my connection so I'll try this again.... :)
Kathleen - oops, "Where will we go today?"
Christina/K/Kingston - I use a planning board. You could write a question like "which group goes to the writing centre today?"
Jane*K*MO - so do I, Kat
Addie k/mo - thanks, christina, that is a good idea! we use a planning board too
Lisa - I just do it by reading books that have the question mark constantly in it. I also ask a question like who brought an umbrella to school today? and they have to sign their name on the sheet so they are seeing the ? and we are talking about it.
Kathleen - addie, I don't incorporate speech bubbles into news, that's why I said it;s not relevent, but I love intro-ing speech bubbles to the kids, they apply them at the writing center immediately, bring them in from home newpapers, etc. sorry, didn't mean to steer the topic away from dialy news. But I'll bet if we posted a photo of ourselves, or a student, we could use a speech bubble in the daily message.
jo - we also recap our day at the end of the day by writing another "message"
Djinn - Jo - what a great idea. do you make that into a book also?
Christina/K/Kingston - Jo, I like that idea - I have about 10 minutes at the end of each day that I could be using in a better way.
Djinn - What a great way to teach beginning and end
Addie k/mo - i guessed i missed that, kat...mine like speech bubbles too...i have some in the illustrations of some of our poems and sometimes they are in big books....i have been intro ???? with stories too! but, i just thought the news would be one more opportunity to show them
Jane*K*MO - Jo, I could do that while waiting for dismissal bell. Good to refresh students memories of what we did in school today
jo - Yes we make them into books too. I use half sheets of chart paper.
Chris/MD *1* - Put it on a calendar and then send the calendar home weekly or monthly.
Djinn - thanks for another great idea Jo
Djinn - Chris- I like that also - helps parents see what we are doing
Skip - I have seen teachers post a character outside their classrooms. The character has a speechbubble with it and you can have a morning message in the bubble. Perhaps you can say what their morning work is in the bubble.
Addie k/mo - cute idea, skip
jo - The main reason I started the end of the day reflection was because my children always answered the question What did you do inschool today? with "nothing" I wanted to help them remember what they had done
Djinn - Skip - great way to incorporate bubbles.
Djinn - Jo- great way to reflect and get in all of those modes of learning
Chris/MD *1* - I haven't written anything, but my children love to tell one thing that they learned during the day.
Djinn - Chris - i do this with our Bear - but think I'll start writing
Chris/MD *1* - I am going to write also. I think I will start the calendar in Nov.
Desiree - Does anyone have any resources they would recommend about journal writing?
Djinn - Does anyone have ideas for incorporating word wall and daily news?
Kathleen - Skip, that's a great idea!
jo - When my children come in, they read or write. what do yawls do?
Djinn - desiree- try Month by Month Reading and Writing in Kindergarten
Chris/MD *1* - I like Journal Activities Across the Curriculum. I t is put out by Instructional Fair 1-56822-120-7
Chris/MD *1* - Mine read. They only have at the most 5 minutes before morning announcements.
Djinn - I have been using today and is in my daily message. I will be adding them to our word wall
Addie k/mo - if you use the same common phrases for a while, you could post the high frequency words on the ww when you move on to a new phrase.... like for "name is the leader" you could add "is" and "the" to the ww and then for "name likes _______" you could add the word "likes"
Jane*K*MO - I usually have an independent project that the students can do while I check roll, and the rest of the students go to breakfast
mw - Desiree, I try different journal writings monthly such as regular journal entries daily, reading logs, dialogical Journals
jo - Desiree I stopped using journals because they were too much trouble..running out of pages,etc Now I just make sure I have plenty of plain newsprint avaiable. I like this better because the children can take it home right then while its fresh
Addie k/mo - mine do math tubs (math their way) when they walk in and we have small group math lessons, each team meets at the table with me one day per week
mw - Does any lesson plans on novels for 9th and 10th graders
Kathleen - I wish we could hear each other's accents here! :-)
Djinn - Does anyone else have anything to add to our discussion?
Djinn - Are there any questions we did not cover?
Gumbo/K/La - my kids do their sign-in books, and name, address, and phone number puzzles......
mw - Novels
Jane*K*MO - My kids love having a journal. Whenever a parent wanders into my room, I recruit them to make extra journal. I use plain paper and cover it with wallpaper samples
Djinn - I would like to meet againg in Jan. or Feb. to see how we are doing with our Daily Message
Kathleen - jo, that is interesting, what you just said about loose paper vs. bound journals. My teaching partner and I discovered by accident this Sept that the kids were less intimidated by a sheet of paper than the bound journals. They really didn't resist with "I can't write" protests the way they have in the past when given bound journals.
dan - I have a journal tree. Each day I pick a student to go and get a journal starter from our tree. This month the journals are on pumpkins. Next month I will put them on turkeys.
Chris/MD *1* - It is great hearing how literacy works, but it is also discouraging. I used to teach this way.
Addie k/mo - we use notebook paper and they put them in a loose leaf binder to save them
Djinn - mw this is a focused discussion on daily news
Jane*K*MO - my students copy words they find in the room in their journals. including the morning message. they love writing the date
Djinn - Daily news and journal writing are integral - you must model the writing before thay can do it themselves.
Addie k/mo - chris, do you have no choice in how you teach???
Addie k/mo - yes, and modeling the thinking process. that way it is broken down for them into its most basic elements and doesnt look like an insurmountable task
dan - Has anyone ever tried having a reporter of the day. It is that students job to recap the things covered in the day?
Djinn - Addie- I just started doing this about March of last year- I see such a difference in how they write
Djinn - Dan - how does this work? Sounds great
dan - It is just an idea I had at the momment. Have any ideas how I can make it work?
Djinn - how about having a special person of the day - dictate the highlights of the day?
Djinn - Or what were the three best things of the day?
Jane*K*MO - dan, when a teacher starts letting students write the morning message, they could be the reporter
Djinn - Thank you all! This is how I get to be a better teacher.
dan - How about this person records them infront of everyone else. In the morning you can have the news from yesterday replayed. Might help refresh their memmories.
jo - I have not had a reporter but we have a secretary as one of our helpers. The job of the secretary is to write down all the good thingd he/she sees . They have a clipboard. From time to time during the day I say "Secretary will you read us some of the good things you have seen today?" They just "read and read and read"!!!
Djinn - great idea Jane
jmc/az - We make a memories book. We discuss what we did yesterday. We date it together, and then the artist of the day will illustrate it. Then each month is put together for the students to read and remember.
Addie k/mo - i have heard really bad things about core knowledge!!! missouri is debating this in the spring. i hope it doesnt pass
Chris/MD *1* - Jo, I like the secretary idea. I might just find time to do that. I will do it undercover.
Jane*K*MO - Addie, how is core knowledge different from the Show-Me standards?
Djinn - jmc- great idea- I'm stealing that one!
dan - How do you have time to squeeze in the writing at the end of the day? If we have a minute to recap, I feel fortunate.
Kathleen - Chris, LOL! undercover teaching..whatever it takes!
Djinn - Chris - sound like you have a really tough job!
jo - dan, It was important to me so I made time.
Addie k/mo - jane, it is a base of facts that has to be mastered at certain grades, but they arent concepts they are facts like name the author of the "the fog"...why is that author more imporrtant than any other???? very specific (and i think trival info)
dan - jo, I guess this means I need to start putting it in my planning!
Chris/MD *1* - This on line conferencing and chatting really helps. I see that there are teachers who care.
Jane*K*MO - one thing I discovered about teaching K, you teach in terms of a couple of minutes here and five minutes there.
Djinn - LOL - looks like there are a lot of us that are rethinking our planning Dan
Gumbo/K/La - When do ya'll get time to do all this stuff???? Talking to another kdn teahcer today-----not enuf time to do all district expects.....We're told to use DAP, but given academic report cards,etc.etc.etc.....
Djinn - Gumbo - we sneak it in! I know those of you who teach half day are spinning like I am!
dan - Gumbo, try not sleeping! If you can figure out when to do all this, please let us know! I am a first year teacher in shock still!
jo - I wish we could just teach children, not worry about programs,etc.
Addie k/mo - gumbo, we go really fast, i figure that it holds their attention better and we will go over and over these concepts. especially with the daily news, no point in belaboring anything, touch on it and move on, revisit another day
KTeach2000 - Where I will student teach we don't have half days schools..At least that district doesn't. Teachers have more time to devote to one class.
Kathleen - Full day is a big advantage for k, if used well
Gumbo/K/La - I teach in a full day program, and we will probably end up doing drill and kill sheets just to document covering everything.....
KTeach2000 - And each class has 2 assistance.
Djinn - Addie has it right - keep going over the same material - but quickly and thoroughly
Djinn - KTeach2000 - please let us know how it goes
Jane*K*MO - That is what our K teachers have found. We changed from 1/2 day to full day and we all love it!!
Addie k/mo - we have full day and i love it!!! dont know how we ever got things done in a half day!
Kathleen - KTeach, how many kids in each class?
jmc/az - I wish our state would fund for full day K
KTeach2000 - Djinn in Jan 2000, I will LOL...Kathleen an average of 26
Djinn - Gumbo 8>( I feel for you.
Addie k/mo - cant you use your lesson plans to show that you have "covered" everything??? i dont see that drill and kill really accomplishes that goal even
hi-dee - we have full day here, too....still doesn't seem to be enough time...half day was nuts before we switched
Jane*K*MO - one of our K teachers had taught half days for 32 years and was planning on retiring after this year, since we have gone to full days, she has changed her mind and is going full steam ahead
jo - I think our job should be to provide experiences for our children so they can live richly and fully as five and six year olds and not on getting them ready for the next grade
Djinn - Well All - I see it's time to close this chat. Thank you all for coming and sharing such great ideas
Djinn - Bye for now! I just love Kindergarten teachers.
Kathleen - Good meeting.....Good night!
