Using the Common Core Each Day

In language arts we use a variety of reading and comprehension strategies when we introduce a story.  Can I pick and choose whatever I want to teach?  Well...not really!  Although we use our background knowledge and a variety of teaching strategies, we MUST teach the kindergarten common core state standards each and every day.  For example, this week our essential question is:  "How does the weather change in different months and seasons?"   The story we read this week is called Every Season.  As we read we dig deeper into the text to answer our essential question.  We discuss the text features and illustrations on each page, answer our essential question and utilize this strategy during our small group readings and even during journal writing.  These common core state standards are getting the students ready for first grade!