My First Give Away!

I am so excited to be teaming up with Kim Adsit for this giveaway! Kim has been amazing to let me preview her new items up for sale on Teachers Pay Teachers.  I was lucky enough to go to many of Kim's sessions at the I Teach K conference in Las Vegas this summer.  She has great tips and ideas that can be incorporated right away in your classrooms.

So, I bet you're wondering.....what is the prize?

2 lucky winners will receive a copy of Kim's resource pack for  

Jack Hartmann's  Names in Motion! 

(Sorry the CD is not included in this give away!)

The activities include:  

*How Many Beats? (name syllable book)

*Clap and Count Kids

*How Many Syllables in Your Name? (Class and individual graphs)

*Your name, my Name Syllable Sort

*Sorting Friends

Combining music and literacy activities is a great way to get young learners involved in class activities.  Through music, children learn to:

·         Understand language (we must comprehend language in order to become “true” readers)

·         Experiment with rhythm, words, tempo, and melody (which are important skills in reading    aloud)

·         Think creatively and holistically

·         Make the connection between print and spoken words

·         Practice motor development and motor coordination while experimenting with various instruments and dancing

·         LISTEN (we sometimes forget that listening is an important literacy skill)

SOURCE: Songs For Teaching

So, how do I win this awesome prize?

You must do 3 things:

1. Follow me on this blog.

2. Go to Kim's Teacher's Pay Teacher's page by clicking here and browse through all of her activities.

3.  Post a comment about what your favorite resource is.  Be sure to leave your e-mail address.

You must do all three things to be eligible to win the prize!

Contest deadline will be Sunday, September 26, and I will announce the winner on September 27.

Good luck and happy browsing!  

P.S. Her stuff is really almost too good to pass up - browsing may turn into buying!!

Alphabet Under Construction

Children may or may not come to school knowing the letters in their name or even being able to write their names.  Using children's names can be a powerful tool in developing some emerging literacy skills. When we teach using children's names it establishes a greater sense of community and ownership in the classroom.  Children love to hear and see their names; they are so proud of them!  There are so many skills that can be taught with names: alphabet recognition, phoneme substitution, phoneme deletion, beginning sounds, number of letters, syllables, rhyming....the list goes on and on!

In this lesson, I used the first letter of the children's names.  But, before we started reading the book, we did a fun music and movement activity.  All you need is Hap Palmer's Learning Basic Skills Through Music, Vol. 1 and a set of alphabet bean bags or alphabet cards.

    

Lay the bean bags on in circle on the floor and let the children march around the bags -- follow the instructions on the song, Marching Around the Alphabet!  The children have a great time with this song, and it's mellow pace is really nice!

After moving our bodies a bit, I read the book, Alphabet Under Construction  by Denise Fleming.  This is a fun ABC book in which the little mouse uses different tools and items to build each letter of the alphabet.  The children really enjoy seeing what the mouse will use to create each letter! 

I then show them all of the letters that I have pre-cut out of tagboard.  The letters are fairly big (I use large, rather old fashioned stencils to make them, they are probably 10-12" high).  I show each letter and invite the children to come get their stencil when the first letter of their name is shown.    The children have their own opportunity to "construct" their letter.  I have a variety of collage supplies available to them (beans, buttons, feather, pom poms, etc.)  

This is a really nice first couple of weeks activity because the children have the opportunity to be creative freely and work indepedently.  Before we hang the letters up, we write our name on a slip that says,  is for _________ and glue that along with our letter onto a larger piece of paper.  We try to read all letter and the name before it gets hung up.  The children love to use a pointer to try to read the letters and the names!

This is an idea that I got from some of my colleagues.

Letters in our names...

This was a quick, fun activity that we did the first week of school.  I typed all of the children's names in a document, and changed the font from black to gray.  Each letter was in its own box.  (I made a table).  I'll use these same tables for name puzzles in a couple of weeks.  The children each got their own name, traced the letters in their name, cut it out and glued them on the red strip in order.  This simple project gave me a very quick, informal assessment on who understood left to right directionality, who knew the letters in their name, as well as if they knew what order their names went in.  I had a few kiddos with upside down letters, and names that went from right to left.

 The next day, we  sorted the names by the number of letters it had.  Each child counted their own name and placed it in the correct spot on our floor graph.  The children were all very excited when it was their turn to count the letters in their name!

We will continue with many more name activities during the first weeks of school!