Learning in Kindergarten

Projects to develop the Communication Competency

There are several ways to reach out to find a partner teacher with whom to do a communications activity.

• Consult or advertise in the Connected Classroom Project Registry.
  The registry allows you to meet and work with colleagues from the regions of Quebec, from Canada and from countries around the world. If you don't find a project or project idea you like, you can put out your own request for a partner.
  Go to the Registry  now
  
• Subscribe to Kindershare mailing list
  This will allow you to receive announcement about the preschool projects and activities advertised in the Project Registry. But it is also a venue for contacting K teachers directly.
  Subscribe to the mailing list now
  
• Join a Social Networking site dedicated to educators.
  It is a place where teachers can make contacts and find a like-minded educator with whom to engage in planning an activity.
  Find Educator Networks now
  
  

Kindergarten LS and LES

• A canvas for creating your own LES: a document chock full of ideas about integrating Robotics into a complete LES.  Available in the Resources folder of the Kindergarten Professional Learning Community.

LEARN Project highlights

Alphabet Adventure Gallery
(A telecollaborative project)
Playing with letter sounds and the alphabet is often part of the Kindergarten teacher's activity kit. This project is meant to introduce a technology and communications component to an age-old practice. In short, Kindergarten children draw pictures representing a letter of the alphabet. They voice-record what the picture stands for. The pictures and the sound files are published on the Web to make an interactive Alphabet Web-Book. A class web page is also used to communicate with parents and other classes. The result is a growing online Alphabet Book children can see and listen to. This is a  " Learn-by-Doing" project in which teachers will benefit from the help of their local RECIT animator as well as online help from the project co-ordinator to acquire the required skills as they participate in the project.

Tools

ABRACADABRA
ABRA is a free, interactive web-based literacy program developed by the Centre for the Study of Learning and Performance (CSLP). It is designed for early elementary school-aged students, their educators, teachers and parents. The first levels of ABRACADABRA  are appropriate for Kindergarten children and can be used in conjunction with a teacher's other approaches to literacy development.  Currently ABRA contains 32 alphabetic, fluency, comprehension and writing activities linked to 17 interactive stories and stories written by schoolchildren.

While the complete version of ABRACADBRA (ABRA) is available as part of the CSLP’s Learning Toolkit, which contains the electronic portfolio EPearl and must be stored locally on a server at the school board or educational centre, a lighter version of ABRA is available at http://abralite.concordia.ca .

Classroom activities

• Learning Through Movement
  An article with classroom suggestions in which the author presents ways to work movement into a regular educational setting, whether children are learning at home or at public school.

Projects for inspiration

• Beginning the journey: Kindergartners Explore Through Project Learning (Edutopia)
  At this award-winning kindergarten learning center, shared with a special education preschool, the students decide what projects they want to tackle, and teachers guide them to resources, on the Internet and in books, that help them create something from what they learn. Whether they're building an airplane or a cruise ship, or conducting a funeral for the class praying mantis, AEEC students are learning more than basic facts and skills. They are acquiring a taste for the process of lifelong learning.
  
  

• Ladybugs
  Jackie Dare, a Kindergarten teacher at Parkdale School, English Montreal School Board, describes how she and her students developed a learning unit about ladybugs. This project provides a model for Inquiry-based learning in the Kindergarten classroom. The approach can be adapted to any topic of interest.