December - February Literacy Events

Most recent listed first.

Tuesday, February 27

Read Aloud Stories

  • Pancakes, Pancakes by Eric Carle

  • If You Give a Pig a Pancake by Laura Numeroff

  • Boom! Zoom! By Judith Bauer Stamper

Oral Language

  • Today was Shrove Tuesday and we spoke about the significance of pancakes and we talked about different foods that we liked very much.

  • Pancakes, Pancakes was a great story to read because as I was reading I was asking the children questions that related to them. For example: If they wanted milk would they have to milk a cow?  Where do they get their milk from?  Do their moms build a fire to cook pancakes?  What does their parents use to make pancakes? I then asked them where they think the story is taking place, in the city or on a farm?  What kinds of hints are there to tell us where the story is taking place?  We also talked about time.  Is the story taking place a long time ago or do they think it is happening now.

  • After reading the stories we had Kindercook and in small groups the children made their own pancakes.  They were delicious!   

Songs and Poems

  • Songs:

    • Twinkle, Twinkle

    • Star Light, Star Bright

    • I’m a Little Rocket to the tune of I’m a Little Teapot:

    • I’m a Little Rocket

Pointing at the moon
Now I’m getting fueled up
We’ll be ready soon.
When it’s time to board me
Then Ill say:
Blast off!  Zoom!
We’re on our way!

  • Poems:

    • In a Rocket

    • I see the moon

When reciting I see the moon, the children identified all of the words that were “me” they then looked around at all the other poems and words that are posted in the room and tried to find the word “me”.  They were very excited when they found the word!

Monday, February 26

We are now learning about Space.  We have some materials ready to build a space ship and we are going to start some research to decide what our spaceship is going to look like.

Read Aloud Stories

  • Space At Your Fingertips by Judy Nayer and Illustrated by Terri Chicko

  • The Really Big Universe: Discover a Galaxy of Amazing Facts copyrighted by FUNFAX

  • Goodnight Moon by Margaret Wise Brown

Oral Language

  • We started to talk about the sun first.  I read Space at your Fingertips by Judy Nayer.  We read the sun part and talked about the sun being a star and that it gives our planet light and warmth.  We also talked about all the planets rotating around the sun and that it is at the center of the solar system.  I also talked about how large the sun is, that you can fit one million earths in the area of the sun.

Songs and Poems

Our new poems are:

  •  Mercury, Venus, the Earth and Mars
    These are the planets among the stars  
    Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus too!  
    Neptune and Pluto,  
    I know them do you?  

  • These poems I believe I found in Vera Trembach’s Space, Space, Space

    • I see the moon  
      And the moon sees me;  
      God bless the moon
      And God bless me  

    • In a Rocket  
      See the stars
      In a Rocket
      Look there’s Mars  
      In a Rocket 
      Way Up high  
      In a Rocket
      In the sky  

Journaling

We worked in our journals today.  
First we said the word Sun . 
We caught the word in our hands and stretched it out .
We said the sounds very slow . 
We then clapped the sounds sun made . 
It made three sounds so we started with the first letter and identified which letter made that sound and then the next sound etc.  
On my magnetic board I had the magnetic letters that spelled sun, I made three boxes on the board with a dry erase marker.  We said the sounds and I pushed the letters in the corresponding boxes.  We did this three times.  
The children wrote the word sun in their journals .
I then asked for words that rhyme with sun .
The students came up with fun, run, nun, gun, pun and a number of nonsense rhymes that they wrote down as well.  To help the students with the rhyming words, I had the magnetic letters under the word sun to give them a few hints.  
After the students said each rhyme they wrote the rhymes in their journals. After the word work they drew a picture of the sun.

 

Friday, February 23

Read Aloud Stories

  • At the Kids request we read an old Favorite The Kissing Hand by Audrey Penn

Shared Reading

  • Babies by Susan Canizares and Pamela Chanko

  • Homes in the Ground  by Mary Reid

Oral Language

  • Today we started our sound bags.  I have collected a number of different items for each sound and I have placed them in large Ziploc bags.  For example in the B bag, I have:

  • A bear, a Barbie, a basket, plastic balloons, a block, a bow, plastic bananas, plastic bacon, a bunny, a bracelet, a boat, Bugs bunny, a bell, a boy, a book, a Batman puppet etc. 

  • I divided the class in half and my assistant was a leader of one group and I was the leader of the other.  In our groups we placed two hula hoops on the floor and mixed two sound bags and placed them on the floor in between the hula hoops.  Taking turns we went around the circle and the students had to pick up the item and tells us what it was and then had to determine which sound the item started with and which letter the sound is identified with. They then placed the item in the correct hula hoop.

Thursday, February 22

Read Aloud Stories

  • Dinosaurs are Different by Aliki

Shared Reading

  • Patterns by Samantha Berger and Daniel Moreton

  • Nests, Nests, Nests by Susan Canizares and Mary Reid

Oral Language

  • After reading the story Patterns, the students started looking around the classroom and tried to find patterns in our environment.  They saw:

    • the calendar pictures had patterns; heart, heart, mitten

    • the poems were written in a color pattern on each line: blue, pink, blue, pink

    • Jenna was wearing a striped shirt: blue, green, red

    • I then asked them to look for patterns on their drive home and to look around the house for patterns.

Songs and Poems

  • Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star

Wednesday, February 21

Read Aloud Stories

  • Saturday Night at the Dinosaur Stomp by Carol Diggory Shields

Shared Reading

  • The Beak Book by Pamela Chanko

  • Monkeys by Susan Canizares and Pamela Chanko

Oral Language

  • I am reading the Journey into Reading books for our shared reading to increase the comfort level of the students when they are taking these books home.  If they have seen the book and they are familiar with the language they are so much more confident in their reading at home.  In the beak book it had rhyme and opposites.  For example:

This beak is red.
This beak is brown.
This beak is up.
This beak is down.
This beak is open.
This beak is shut.
This beak can peck.
This beak can cut.
Etc.

 

  • In the literacy Centers today I had a group doing Guided Writing.  We talked about the book we had read previously in Guided Reading, My Family in the Collections series and we started to talk about the sounds we hear in My Family.  We wrote down the sounds in our journal and wrote down the names of the people in our family.  Most of the children knew how to spell the names and for those that didn’t I asked them to write down the first and last letter, by stretching out the name and listening to the sounds.  They did very well!

Thursday, February 15

Read Aloud Stories

  • A Cake All For Me by Karen Magnuson Beil

Shared Reading

  • Hearts on the …

  • Valentine

Oral Language

In our story A Cake All For Me the language had a very similar pattern to another rhyme we had done.  Once I read through 2 pages the children started to say, “ hey wait a minute this sounds like One, Two Buckle my Shoe.”  We started to talk about how some stories have similar patterns.  I then read Snowman, Snowman, what do you see and asked the children which story it reminded them of.  They jumped up because they knew right away that it had the same language pattern as Brown bear, Brown bear.

Songs and Poems

  • Do I Love You?  By Vera Trembach
    Do I Love You?
    Do I Love You?
    Do I Love You?
    Do fish swim?
    Does a hen lay eggs?
    Is the sky blue?
    Is the dinosaur extinct?
    Do I Love You?
    You can guess!
     The answer is YES!

 

Wednesday, February 14

Read Aloud Stories

  • The Valentine Bears by Eve Bunting and pictures by Jan Brett

Shared Reading

  • Valentines on the…

  • Valentine

Activities

At the beginning of the week we started with Balanced Literacy Centers as well, we started a Journey into Reading Program.  The purpose of the Journey into Reading program is for the students to familiarize themselves with books that are at the emergent and early reader level.  The students are thrilled and are using a number of reading strategies that they will need to become a successful reader.  The students’ job first thing when they arrive in the classroom is to exchange their books.  I have the home reading books on a specific bookshelf that they can choose from.  I have modeled a few times to take the card out of their pocket, return it to the book and place neatly on the bookshelf, then to choose a new book, take the card out of the back and to place it in their pocket.  They have been quite successful even after a few days.  The students who have not returned or who have not read the book yet can keep the book as long as they need.

Today they exchanged their Journey into Reading books and we started with Literacy Centers.  After Literacy Centers we read our story, The Valentine Bears.  We then started our Valentine Centers, Lacing together our Heart Mailboxes that we decorated, Making a Love Bug pin, Making a Love Bug Valentine for our friend.  After recess and snack the students distributed their valentines after I gave them a few strategies.  The first thing we talked about was to look at the first letter in the person’s name, then to match up all the letters.  They were very excited and this was a valuable letter identification activity. 

 

Tuesday, February 13

Read Aloud Stories

  • Clifford’s First Valentine by Norman Bridwell

Shared Reading

  • White Snowman, White Snowman

  • Hearts on the … mailbox, box, socks, shoes, wall, window, door floor, cake, table, chair, Hearts everywhere

  • Valentine 

    • Cut a big red heart
       Get crayons and paste
      Cut a little white heart
      It’s for you, Mom
      It says, “I love you”

Oral Language

We did the same Literacy centers with different groups.  My group today could not read the words right away in my Guided Reading group.  They needed more verbal prompts and needed to be directed to use the picture clues.  Everyone was very excited about where they were going today, the centers are a hit!

Monday, February 12 

Read Aloud Stories

  • Bruno in the Snow by Sylvie Daigneault

  • Treats from a Tree by Susan Canizares and Mary Reid

Shared Reading

  • White Snowman, White Snowman What do you see?
    I see red boots…
    I see a green scarf…
    I see an orange toboggan…
    I see white ice skates…
    I see a brown sled…
    I see a pink hat…
     I see blue mittens…
    I see a winter wonderland as pretty as can be!

This book follows the same pattern as Brown bear, Brown bear.

Oral Language

We started our balanced literacy centers.  It was our first day, so I explained what to do at each station.  The stations are: Puppets, Phonemic Awareness, Listening Center, Journal, Take home books, Computer, Paired Reading, Independent Reading, Guided Reading, Guided Writing, Browse Books and ABC.  I went through them all and explained to them what each center should look like.  I modeled with another student what each person should do and say in Paired Reading.  I then told them which center they needed to go to.  I took a group to do guided reading.  We read My Family that is in the First Collections for Kindergarten/ Early Emergent Literacy Program. 

It had very simple text, My Family, me, my mom, my dad etc… With this group we talked about:

  • the title: what is a title, the letters in the title, how many upper case letters, how many lower case letters, how many m’s etc.

  • We then browsed through the book looking at pictures and seeing if the kids knew the words.  This group could read the whole book.

  • We went back through the book and identified all of the my words.

Before we knew it time was up.  I then gave my group an opportunity to browse books while I checked out the functioning of the other centers.  They all loved the centers.

Friday, February 9

Read Aloud Stories

  • Dinosaurs are Different by Aliki

  • Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star by Iza Trapani

Shared Reading

  • Snow on the…

  • Hearts on the …

Both of these pattern stories have the same pattern

Oral Language

We had Mr. Watts again today and two of my students brought in instruments to share.  One of my students plays the viola, which is similar to a violin and the other brought in a plastic harmonica. Mr. Watts brought the one student up to the front and they talked about the parts of the viola and parts of the guitar, they asked the kids about similarities and differences.  My student played a few pieces and Mr. Watts accompanied her with the piano.  When she played Twinkle, Twinkle my little ones picked up on it and started to sing along.  Mr. Watts then did a song about instruments and the little one with the harmonica had an opportunity to play along.  After our time with Mr. Watts was up we came back to the classroom and read the book Twinkle, Twinkle by Iza Trapani.  It was a wonderful transition. 

 

 

Thursday, February 7

Read Aloud Stories

  • Where are you, Little Green Dragon? By Klaus Baumgart

  • Avalanche by Michael J. Rosen

  • Stella, Queen of the Snow by Marie Louise Gay- we read this story again as requested by the children

Shared Reading

  • Arctic Winter, Arctic Summer by Susan Canizares and Daniel Moreton

  • Snow on the… hill, tree, sled ,me ,hat ,suit , mittens ,boot ,house ,stairs ,window , everywhere.

Oral Language

We talked about how animals camouflage themselves with their environment.  In the book, Arctic Summer, Arctic Winter it has information and wonderful photos of Arctic life in the summer and in the winter.

Songs and Poems

  • Sleepy Little Groundhog

  • Valentines, Valentines

  • If I were a Gorilla by Raffi

  • Do I love you? Poem by Vera Trembach

Wednesday, February 7

Books we read

  • Penguin Pete, Ahoy by Marcus Pfister

  • Rainforest Colors by Susan Canizares

Oral Language

Before reading Penguin Pete, Ahoy! I talked about the title and the author again, asking them what the title tells us and who an author and illustrator are.  I told the students that Marcus Pfister was one of my favorite authors and that he wrote Rainbow Fish and Dazzle the Dinosaur.  We read Dazzle last month and the kids remembered the story so I had them retell the story.  We then read through the story and talked about some vocabulary that they were unfamiliar with.

Songs and Poems

  • If I were a Gorilla by Raffi

  • Sleepy little Groundhog

  • Valentines, Valentines

  • How much wood…

Tuesday, February 6

Books we read

  • Patterns by Samantha Berger and Daniel Moreton

  • Stella, Queen of the Snow by Marie Louise Gay

Oral Language

In the story Stella, Queen of the snow, Stella describes what snowmen eat and how cold snow is.  She describes snow as cold as vanilla ice cream.  We talked about how we could describe how cold snow is and we talked about what we think snowmen eat or if we used our imaginations if we could hear snow angels sing.

Songs and Poems

  • Again we talked about the verses in If I were a Gorilla by Raffi.  We sang the song together.

  • We had a guest music teacher in, Mr. Watts who sings with us about one week a month.  Mr. Watts was in today and talked to the students about Mozart, Bach, Brahms and other musicians.  The students were able to use the chimes to play along with the music.

 

Monday, February 5

Books we read

  • I am a Dinosaur by Vera Trembach

  • Saturday Night at the Dinosaur Stomp by Carol Diggory Shields

Oral Language

  • Our focus today was on Valentines Day.  One of the new centers was the writing center.   At the writing center there are some vocabulary words and some Valentines poems.  I read through the vocabulary words and poems with them and talked about what some of the things they could make or write.  I also have mailboxes that I made out of 2L milk cartons.  I took pictures of the kids with the digital camera and printed their names under the picture so that the kids know which mailbox is which and how to spell the names of their friends.  The names are taped on top of their mailbox.

  • The poems are:

Roses are Red                        Roses are Red                  Roses are Red

Violets are Blue                       Violets are Blue               Violets are Blue

Happy Valentines Day              I hope this day                  Sugar is sweet

From me to you!                       Is happy for you!              And so are you!

  • Some of the vocabulary words are:

To:     Love:   Happy Valentines Day   You are Special    You are my friend  I Love You

Songs and Poems

  • Sleepy Little Groundhog

  • Valentines, Valentines

  • How much wood, would a …

  • If I were a gorilla song by Raffi

Friday, February 2

Books we read

  • When Dinosaurs Go Visiting by Linda Martin

  • Raptors! By Lisa McCourt

  • Groundhog Day by Betsy Lewin

Oral Language

  • One of the students looked up groundhogs on her computer and brought in some information.  We read through it a reviewed some of the things we learned yesterday. 

Songs and Poems

  • Sleepy Little Groundhog

  • How much wood, would a woodchuck…

  • A new Valentine poem:

Valentines, Valentines
How many do I see?
Valentines, Valentines,
Share them with me.
I have red ones
I have orange ones
I have yellow ones, too!
I have green ones 
I have purple ones
I have some that are blue.
Valentines, Valentines
How many do I see?
Valentines, Valentines
Count them with me.

  • If I were a Gorilla song by Raffi

Activity

  • After talking about groundhogs and shadows, we made a craft.  Our craft was a Styrofoam cup, Popsicle stick, a picture of a groundhog front and back.  We had talked about the groundhog's burrow and they needed to color the cup leaving snow on top , then grass and then dirt.  Then they colored their groundhogs and made a shadow to go behind the groundhog, they cut it out.  We then taped their groundhog to the stick and poked a hole in their cup.  The stick goes through the hole and it becomes a puppet.  The groundhog peeks out of his burrow and if the sun is shining and he sees his shadow, he gets scared and goes back inside his burrow, if he comes up and the clouds are covering the sun he stays out and Spring is just around the corner.

  • After their puppet was made we did our Sleepy little groundhog poem and they acted it out with their puppet.

 

Thursday, February 1

Books we read

  • The Dinosaur Who Lived in my Backyard by B.G Hennessy

  • Dinosaur Bob and His Adventures with the Family Lazardo by William Joyce

  • Dinosaurs by Gail Gibbons

Oral Language

  • To prepare the students for Groundhog Day, we started with a poem.  The poem was 

Sleepy Little Groundhog:
Up through the ground,
Creep, creep, creep-
The sleepy little groundhog
Peek-peek-peeks.
If he sees his shadow
And the sun is bright,
He jumps down his hole
And ducks out of sight!
Up through the ground,
Creep, creep, creep-
The sleepy little groundhog 
Peek-peek-peeks.
If there is no shadow
And the clouds hide the sun,
He jumps out of his hole
And he’s ready for some fun!

Roxie Summers-Three-Year-Olds
Jack and Jill Pre-school, Leavenworth, KS

  • We did the actions with this poem and the students said, “Do it again, Do it again!”

  • After the poem we talked about groundhogs.  I found the groundhog information on www.themailboxcompanion.com Groundhog Grandeur.  We talked about groundhogs being rodents and belonging to the squirrel family.  They are also called woodchucks.  Groundhogs make two houses, one for the summer and one for the winter.  The burrows have one front door and many back doors to escape from enemies.  The burrows have separate rooms for nursing, sleeping and a room for pottying.  We talked about them having a bathroom, bedroom and dining room. 

Songs and Poems

  • Sleepy Little Groundhog

  • How much wood would a woodchuck chuck…

  • Walk like a Pterodactyl song

  • Pterodactyl, Pterodactyl song

 Journaling

  • In our journals we drew dinosaurs.  With the students, we said the word, stretched it out to hear the sounds and then we clapped the sounds of the letters.  The au was difficult and I helped them with the letters for that sound.  After clapping we wrote the letters down in our journal and illustrated it.  While I was walking around the students were telling me about their pictures and I was scripting for them.  There were a few students that I helped sound out words so that they could write it themselves.

    Wednesday, January 31

    Books we read

    • Dinosaur Roar! By Paul & Henrietta Stickland

    • Dinosaur Days By Linda Manning

    • Weather by Pamela Chanko & Daniel Moreton

    Oral Language

    • All of our stories initiated discussions today.  The story Weather was a information book that talks about what you can do with each kind of weather.  We extended the book by talking about things we like to do when it is snowing, hot, raining, windy etc.  The book had a predictable pattern that the children started reading with me. 

    • The story Dinosaur Roar! talked about dinosaur characteristics.  It has wonderful vocabulary and has opposites.  Here are a few sentence samples:

    dinosaur fierce, dinosaur meek
    dinosaur weak, dinosaur strong

    This book stimulated a discussion about the vocabulary and about opposites.

    • The story Dinosaur Days by Linda Manning is about different dinosaurs visiting a little girl on each day of the week.  The children helped read the story by predicting which day comes next, for the days of the week.  The students also made great observations and noticed the little girl had a picture of each dinosaur on her shirt.  We went through and talked about other observations in the pictures.

    Songs and Poems

    • We acted out the actions of Walk like a Pterodactyl today.  We talked about what a Pterodactyl looked like walking, talking and flying.

    Tuesday, January 30

    Books we read

    • Gingerbread Baby by Jan Brett-  The children were thrilled to listen to another story from Jan Brett, they were very curios to see if it had a secret window as well.  When reading the story they noticed that every page did not have a secret window but that a few did.  They also noticed that the three books we’ve read of Jan Brett are that they looked the same.

    Pattern b books

    • We read Snow together.  This is a simple pattern book that the children can read.  It follows the same pattern as some of our other pattern stories.  For example… 

      • Snow on the tree
        Snow on the hat
        Snow on the sled etc.

      • After reading it together they all received a copy to independently read.

    Songs and Poems

    • A Chubby Little Snowman poem

    • Dinosaurs poem

    • Dinosaur 1, Dinosaur 2 poem

    • I’m a Little Snowman song

    • Dinosaur Chomp

    • My Name is Stegosaurus

    • Pterodactyl

    • Walk like a Pterodactyl

    Monday, January 29

    Books we read

    • The Hat by Jan Brett- The children were so excited because this story had a secret window as well.  I asked them to predict what will happen next.  We also talked about the author and the title and what they are and what they do. 

    • Avalanche by Michael J. Rosen

    • Cookies Week by Cindy Ward and Tomie dePaola- This is a wonderful story to reinforce the days of the week.

    Songs and Poems

    • We made flying Pterodactyls today.  We used our Pterodactyl puppets to sing our Pterodactyl songs, it was fun! 

    • We sang 

      • Pterodactyl 

      • Walk like a Pterodactyl.

    Friday, January 26

    Books we read

    • Ten Little Dinosaurs by Pattie Schnetzler

    • Polar Bears by Susan Canizares and Daniel Moreton-  This is an information picture book.  The pictures are wonderful talking about what the polar bears are doing.  We also looked at the landscape in the pictures talking about where polar bears lived.  We then looked at the globe to show where we live and where polar bears live.

    • Bugs, Bugs, Bugs by Mary Reid and Betsey Chessen

    Songs and Poems

    • Today we sang Tyrannosaurus Rex song to the tune of “The Wheels on the bus”

    The Tyrannosaurus Rex had Great Big Teeth
    Great Big Teeth, Great Big Teeth
    The Tyrannosaurus Rex had Great Big Teeth
    When the dinosaurs roamed.

    After singing the first verse we talked about what we could sing for the other dinosaurs.  The children came up with:

    The Stegosaurus had Big Bony Plates
    The Triceratops had 3 Big Horns
    The     Pterodactyl had Really long wings

    Thursday, January 25

    Books we read

    • A Night in the Dinosaur Graveyard by A. J. Wood. This is a very appealing story to the little ones because it has holograms.  It is a fictional adventure story.

    • Dream Snow by Eric Carle- We reread this story because there is a wonderful activity to do with this story.  I learned about this activity at an inservice through Barb Forbes.  I modified it to fit my theme.  Our activity was that we drew dinosaurs and colored them with felts adding details to their drawings.  It looks best if they color the background as well.  After they have colored it you tape a transparency onto the picture.  The children then paint a white blanket over top of their dinosaur.  After they have painted the blanket with white tempura paint they then take a Q-Tip and dip it into the paint to make the snow. They turned out great!

    Songs and Poems

    • Pterodactyl song

    • Walk like a Pterodactyl

    • Chicken Soup with Rice

    Wednesday, January 24

    Books we read

    • The Mitten by Jan Brett

    • The Mitten adapted from an old Ukrainian Folktale by Vera Trembach

    • Spiders Everywhere by Gail Herman

    Predictable Pattern Stories

    • Counting Penguins by Betsey Chessen and Pamela Chanko- This story is an information picture book with numbers.  When reading the story we talked about the different penguins in each picture and about the different landscapes in each picture.  We then talked about where the picture was taken and what season it was.  Great information at the back of the book.

    • The Northern Lights by Susan Canizares-  This is another information, picture book with color words. With this story we talked about the letters in the color words and how you can use the pictures to identify the words.

    Oral Language

    • We read both Mitten stories.  We reread The Mitten by Jan Brett and I introduced the new Mitten story by Vera Trembach.  Before I read the new story I asked them to watch and listen closely to see what the similarities and differences of the stories were.  The children came up with some great observations.

      •  One mitten is white and one is pink 

      • The boy's name is different 

      • The story ends different

      • The bear doesn’t sneeze

      • There wasn't a dog in the first one

      • There is no secret window

      • There are pictures for words in the new one.

      • The animals are mostly the same </