Easter Egg E

For our letter this theme, we chose E for those excellent eggs!

Targets:
Vocabulary-egg
Sound-symbol relationships-- E says "eh"
Requesting (I want an egg)
Fine Motor

First, we gathered our materials--

--letter Es that have been cut out, a extravaganza of eggs including stickers and cut out eggs and some glue, too. The E on the orange background is sandpaper and we let the kids explore it a bit to get a tactile way of learning the letter E.

We also talked a lot about the sound that the letter E makes---"Eh" like egg, elbow, elephant, etc.
Then, the students did lots of requesting. They requested their E (I want an E) and their eggs (I want an egg) until their letter E was no longer empty.
Here are our eccentric Es

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Misc. St. Patrick's Day activities

Well, I was out for a couple of days, abiding by our health policy where "if you're not feeling well enough to participate, it's best to stay home," so I was not able to take many pictures of some of our St. Patrick's Day activities. But, here's a quick summary of what the students did when I was out!

Squish Bags
We used Ziplock bags, shaving cream, blue food coloring and yellow food coloring.
The students had to request each item as they went along ("I want a bag," "I want yellow" etc).
First, they requested their bags
Next, they requested their shaving cream to squirt into the bag. They got to squish around the shaving cream for a bit.
Then, they choose to put in one color and squished it around, then the other
Last, they continued to squish the yellow and blue around in their shaving cream until it turned green.

Tissue Paper Rainbows
This was an activity that even our Occupational Therapist liked because it really helps increase fine motor skills! We also got a chance to work on our vocabulary words: rainbow and pot of gold.
The students requested different colors of tissue paper and ripped it up into smaller pieces. Then, they dipped them into some glue and put the tissue paper onto their rainbow.

Green Gs
We focused on the letter G for our ongoing phonemic awareness activity where we address the sound/symbol relationships. In this theme, we talked about how G says the /g/ sound, like in "green."
The students requested their G and all the green things that they could fit onto their letter as they were reminded that G says /g/!
And our only photo...

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House Letter "B"

It was kind of hard for me to choose what letter to pick for this theme. I try to choose letters based on our vocabulary words, so it helps when there are a lot of vocabulary words that start with the same sound! For our house theme, we looked at the letter B.

Targets
Vocabulary-- bed, bathtub, brush/brushing, broom
Letter recognition
Sound-Symbol relationship ("B" says /b/)

First, we gathered our materials. We cut out our letter B and the pictures from abcteach.com or are just clip art I found. And, of course, glue.

Next, we looked at the pictures to give the students a chance to identify and label the vocabulary items. We also emphasized the /b/ sound in each word and talked about how the "B" makes a /b/ sound.

Then, the kids requested each picture (I want a bed, etc) and glued them on!

 

The letter "B" was also a good choice for some of our students who aren't making many sounds yet, or who have trouble with multiple sounds. It was helpful just to give them the practice of saying "buh buh buh."

 

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Valentine's Day Letter H

Each theme, we look at the vocabulary words and take one or more that have similar beginning sounds and focus on that letter for one of our bulletin boards. We do this to both teach vocabulary, but also to introduce the concept of the sound-symbol relationship (that is to teach that the speech sound can be represented by a written letter).
For Valentine's Day, we focused on H and used it in a small group activity.

Targets:
Vocabulary- hearts
Letter Recognition - H
Requesting ("I want a heart")
Fine Motor skills

Before starting, we talked about the "H" sound. We gave a visual cue of putting our hand in front of our mouth and made the /h/ sound.
Then, we looked at the letter "H" and matched it to the sound we had been making. "H" says /hhh/!
And, do you know what starts with the /h/ sound? Hearts!

The students then requested their letter "H" and then their stamps and stickers with hearts. They used their little muscles to put their hearts on their "H."

I think they came out pretty cute!

 

Happy Hearts and Hugs!