Albert the Albatross

Albert the Albatross(click here for inflectional endings)  
We needed an easy reader for our first graders with 5 copies so Albert it is.  I found the books at Goodwill and a used bookstore so they averaged out to about $1 each.
  It seems I made the file too big for googledocs to upload it so email me  and I will gladly send it.  Here is what is included.

1.                  *Set of flashcards

2.                *Nonfiction booklet to introduce the albatross.

3.                *Nonfiction booklet to introduce the parrot so we can compare/

4.                *Venn diagram to compare the two birds

5.                *Silent e, blends, digraphs "Lost Albatross" game

6.                *Sequence

7.                *Retelling sticks

8.                *How does Albert feel in the story?

9.                *Character traits with writing response

10.            *Story Elements

11.             short video  http://www.montereybayaquarium.org/cr/oceanissues/plastics_albatross/makana.aspx

12.            nice gliding video

http://videos.wisegeek.com/videos/516911219.htm

13.            cool pictures comparing wingspan of albatross to child and adult..down further egg size

http://www.wfu.edu/biology/albatross/atwork/size_up.htm

14.            background for teacher:  http://www.friendsofmidway.org/pdf/Laysan_Albatross_Facts.pdf

15.            this site has excellent cutout of albatross for intro teaching lesson   http://www.hawaiiatolls.org/teachers/curriculum/final/Unit4B_rev08_web.pdf

16.            Main idea  (two different ones, one with ships, one with fish)

17.            Inflectional Ending worksheet

The Letter U

U is the last letter of the alphabet that we  cover in kindergarten this year....so sad ( I was really having fun with this). 

And I found two wonderful books to share with the boys and girls:  What Color is Your Underwear? by Sam Lloyd and The Ugly Pie by Lisa Wheeler.

 Lisa Wheeler has a way with words.  So with a "heap of hope" and "hitching up the britches" I offer to you my unit that I am working on.  Right now it is in rough draft form but I will happily send it as an attachment to you if you send me your email address.

As of today it includes:  a setting wkst, a character wkst, identify short u sound, a rebus story, two writing response sheets, 5 more active, manipulative ideas for centers, etc.(one with CVC idea)  Most activities are created with only a few students in mind because we are an ESL pullout class.  The southern culture and language of our great USA comes out in this story and is a unique opportunity to share that with the students and hey....it goes with our core curriculum.  I am trying to put each core curriculum standard on every worksheet or activity.

     The boys were delighted with the story and loved saying "ugggly pie" when repeating the story.

And they now know and recognize the word ugly without having really taught it.  I love when that indirect learning takes place.

    **As a side note, this book has excellent alliteration and I hope to create a lesson plan for older children with the story.  It is just too, too good.  Thank you, Lisa.

Whoo-wee....want a roomful of giggles?  Sam Lloyd has it for you in this book.  Who can resist underwear, colored underwear at that!  What better way than this for the little cherubs to remember that U sound and think of these animals when going u  u   u   underwear.   I guess one could say umbrella but the mental visions are just not quite as entertaining.  And, oh the ending!!  What a treat.

Miss Sarah over at http://misssarahsstorytime.blogspot.com/2012/02/flannel-friday-what-color-is-your.html has done a cute flannelgraph with it.    Mrs. Langham over at
 http://learningwithmrslangham.blogspot.com/2011_09_01_archive.html used it to teach colors. 
I have not created anything to go with that yet.

But fun, fun, fun with both books and great visual imagery to help those little memory keepers.

Letter U with Ugly, Umbrella, Up, and of course, Underwear!

Underwear!! by Monsell is sure to get the students thinking about that short u sound as Bismark  the Buffalo learns how much fun it is to laugh.  Click on the name of the book to check it out on UTUBE.

Letter Q With Quarterhorse, Quail, Quack, and Quiet

The children are eager for Monday to come and see what new letter sound they are studying.
Here are the tentative plans.  I have not yet figured out how to upload my worksheets.  It says I need Chrome downloaded but when I went to download it, nothing worked.  I think my computer is too old.

Anyway, we will have fun with quarterhorse races to practice reading of sight words, quail egg hunts for practicing our CVC sounds, and other games and activities.

I love these books for Q is for Quack.  It seems like we could have a lot of fun with them.

The Letter Z with Toot Toot Zoom

What do you think of this book to bring the "zoom" into letter z?  By now you have introduced the sound of the letter and made a list of z words on your word wall, hopefully illustrating each word.

I love this book because not only does the car do a lot of zooming but the road up the mountain is very zigzaggy.  After you are done having fun with the book and the children, you could make your own mountain on your dry erase board and draw a zigzag pathway up the mountain.  Put your sight words on there or whatever skill you are desirous of covering.  Students take their cars and zoom up the mountain, saying the sight words as they go.  You could even time them with a stop watch and record the times.  Then everyone could do it a second time to see if they could beat their first time.  How about a winner's circle or having one student hold a checkered flag when the reader reaches the top of the mountain?  When everyone sees the checkered flag go down, cheers for the reader will bring excitement to the game.

Another activity is to use a version of musical chairs except you will use no chairs and no one gets eliminated.  Instead, students will walk around a table (best for 5 or 6 students, not a whole roomful).  On the table put fabric or paper and draw a racetrack.  Divide the racetrack up into squares and put your sight words in the squares or pictures of objects and they will have to give beginning or ending sound.  If you are working on CVC words, then put those pictures in and students will have to spell.

Put the racetrack music on and give each child a plastic toy racecar.  Students position themselves around the table and start "zooming" their car around the racetrack. When the music stops, students read the sightword that their car lands on.

This is a good activity for those restless learners.  If you want to follow up with a writing activity give them a paper with a racecar on it that has a writing line in it and they could write down:  I raced a (color of car) car today.
Then they would walk around the room reading their statement to 3 or 4 people.

Any other ideas out there?

Baby Zebra Video

Baby Zebra Video

The Letter Z is for ZigZag, Zoo, and Zebra!

We just have Q an U left after Z...That alphabet goes by pretty rapidly.  What is exciting is the growth in the kindergarteners.  When we first started out in September, our content was pretty much the sound of the letter and its identification.  Now we not only do the letter, but sight words, and we always create a simple book for them to read.  This week's book title is "Zebra, Zebra, in the Zoo".  We ask a repetitive question about what he sees and have a repetitive answer with rebus pictures to help with comprehension.  Fun, fun, fun. 

I love the Weekly Reader "Animals I See at the Zoo" series.  After checking out Zebras from our local library, I couldn't wait to get home, read it, and see where it would take me.  Kudos to the author, JoAnn Macken.  She does an excellent job of giving just the right amount of information to beginning readers that is manageable.  Her beginning sentences give the student the boost they need with no difficult vocabulary.  "I like to go to the zoo.  I see zebras at the zoo."  Can you imagine the excitement and thrill for those kindergarteners when they see that first page and realize they can read that whole page by themselves with no adult help!!  And it is not a homemade book by the teacher but a real book! 

.Pictures are realistic and simple, also. 

What activities will we do?
Picture sort:  given 15 pictures students will sort the "z" sound from the other sounds.

I am still waiting for creativity to strike here.  How about a sleeping zebra....zzzz 

Until another day,
Kathy