A Little Time Away

Hi Friends and Recent Visitors
Thanks for stopping by. I hope you find some useful information and activities here at Together Time 4 Families. I am taking a break from blogging and will return soon.
Susan

Simple Pumpkin Book Using Word Wall Words

Everyone likes pumpkins. They symbolize fall, seasonal changes, cooler weather, and Halloween fun! Use pumpkins to motivate writing lessons. This is an activity for kindergarten. Focus on a repetitive text using word wall words. Use word cards for topic words. Encourage children to use letter sounds to choose a word to complete sentences. Books don't need to be long; beginning writers can write 2 sentences and feel successful. Make writing relevant and encourage children to touch each word as the child reads the text.

These are the focus words in this book:  and   a   is 
The topic words are  pumpkin  round   orange 
The student will fill in the specific word to describe the pumpkin and draw a picture to match the text.

Use a text already written on the page with a blank for the last word in the last word.

A pumpkin is __________ . (orange)  draw a picture
A pumpkin is _______. (round)  draw a picture
A pumpkin is _______ and  _______ . (combine the words from the prior sentences orange, round)


Expand using the word  has  my
My pumpkin has _________ .(seeds) draw a picture
My pumpkin has a _________. (stem) draw a picture
My pumpkin has seeds and a stem. draw a picture
My pumpkin has a _________. (face)  draw a picture

Some children are able to write one sentence and others can do more sentences. Challenge students to do more if they are able to write more sentences.

HAPPY FALL!
SUSAN

Morning Meeting Early Literacy Activity Using Word Wall Words

This is a simple and quick activity using word wall words during morning meeting calendar time. The focus is to assist children to look for a familiar word (word wall word) within a word.

For this activity prepare multiple index cards or sentence strips with the word  day printed on them. In addition have the day of the week printed onto a sentence strip. When talking about the name of the day of the week, display the word (Monday) and have a match card of different color available to match to the word  day within the word, Monday.

I like to focus on the word wall word day  because it is repeated daily and used in a natural learning setting during Kindergarten morning meeting calendar time.

This activity has multiple benefits to help children

• look for patterns in words
• match letter forms to other letters
• use words in meaningful ways
• match letter sound to first letter in the word (day)

Encourage children to look for the word day in environmental print around the classroom and school. Go on a word hunt to find specific words within words - you may have to display the word throughout the environment to facilitate children finding the focus word.
SUSAN

Leaf Man by Lois Ehlert Writing Activity

Here is the post to my original one about the Lois Ehlert book, Leaf Man.

http://www.togethertime4families.com/2010/10/leafman-by-lois-ehlert.html

 I came across a post- pdf - by Tracy Theriault that outlines a writing activity for second grade students using Leaf Man as the focus piece. She connects this book to an author study of Lois Ehlert books.

"The students will analyze her themes, style of writing, voice, characters and media for illustrations. And use her picture books as a model for their own writing."

The students will also practice the writing process of  editing, revising and creating a final draft. (Writing Workshop)

Before the children begin writing and after a read aloud of Leaf Man, Tracy suggests a group discussion about the story - strategies used for Reading Workshop. She encourages students to think about Lois Ehlert writing style in relation to these questions and reviews the book again with students

• What makes up a good story?
• How do we use our voice to ensure that the reader understands the point we are trying to make?
• How can we use describing words to "show" the reader, rather than simply "telling"?
• How does the author use leaves to create the illustrations?

Tracy's decision to use this book was based on the premise that this book would be "very appealing and motivating for students because it gives them a model to work from. She believes that modeling writers is the best way for children to enhance their writing abilities for future grades."

http://efolio.umeedu.maine.edu/~ttheriault/tracy_website/LeafMan.pdf

Read the pdf and perhaps you can use some of her plans and ideas for your students.

Here is a fall word search to use as a follow up or additional activity for students.
The second pdf is the answer sheet for the word search.

http://kids.creativity-portal.com/images/projects/puzzles/autumn-wordsearch-color.pdf

http://kids.creativity-portal.com/images/projects/puzzles/autumn-wordsearch-answers.pdf

Enjoy
SUSAN