When it comes to acquiring new vocabulary, I am a huge advocate for themes in early childhood classrooms. Picking up a book about penguins, though interesting, can be so much more meaningful when a classroom really submerges into a long-term focus on it, encompassing multiple academic areas. In kindergarten, we have to be able to retell key details in a nonfiction text. It can be hard to retell details without a full understanding of vocabulary. That's why part of our classroom transformed into this for the duration of a month:
It's nothing fancy. And really could have been SO much cooler (maybe it will be next year), but it got the job done! Instead of having "housekeeping" for centers, this area of the room was furthermore referred to as The Arctic. The blocks next to them, became Arctic Blocks and the farm animals, construction workers, etc. were all replaced with Arctic animals, igloos, scientists, and pieces of snowy Styrofoam. |
Students were exposed to Arctic learning in multiple ways. First, by reading MANY fiction and non-fiction books about the Arctic. Vocabulary cards were made for each Arctic animal that appeared in our books for children to reference when writing and speaking about the animals.
The Arctic learning didn't stop with literacy. We also utilized this vocabulary during math. In math, we were working on representing addition with pictures, objects, and numbers. Students in "Arctic Blocks" could tell and solve math stories using their Arctic vocabulary and animals:
Right up into the end of the day with Discovery Centers, students were opting to play in the Arctic areas and continued using the vocabulary. Even when it wasn't "math time" students will used the Arctic Blocks to tell math stories. In the Arctic dramatic play center, students pretended to be scientists helping sick penguins and wrote about their work. Students with Legos built their own Arctic structures:
I told the students today that this would be the last week of our Arctic classroom and everyone is wondering what it will turn into next. I'm wondering the same thing, but whatever our classroom becomes, let's hope it is as fun and meaningful as the Arctic!