Oral Language development is an important part of early literacy fluency. There are many ways that we develop our skills in this area. In Division 9, a significant part of our Games & Choices time is our sharing circle–which is entirely oral language driven.
We have two sharing circles each day. In our first circle (prior to Games & Choices), 2-3 students share their plan for that day’s play. We listen as a respectful audience-using our whole body, then ask questions and provide comments to each student to gather more information, make suggestions, or just discuss their ideas.
Our second circle is at the end of our Games & Choices time. Once again, we have 2-3 students share what they did that day. Sometimes they show something they have made or worked on, and they also have an opportunity to get feedback in the form of questions or comments from their classmates. We have all become very good at this, and are now moving on…
Today was our first opportunity to record our play using writing! We use a recording sheet to record where we played, who we played with, what we did, what kind of a time we had, and we also include a picture of what we were doing.
Check out some of our work below…