Sunshine Salad

Layer the salad with:

•     lettuce leaf (optional)
•     slice of canned pineapple
•     scoop of yellow yogurt

Eat and enjoy!

(Fun for children to make.)

More fun for children on our website.  http://www.phonicsbyspelling.com/

 

How to Use Music to Teach Anything!

How to Use Music to Teach Anything!

 Music is the best memory aid.  When we look back at the things we remember from our childhood, much of it is associated with music.  It is easy to add music to any subject.  Here are some suggestions:

•  Take a simple tune, beat or rap and add any items to be learned.  The simpler the better.  Keep the songs short and fun.  Funny and silly are especially successful. Children of any age will enjoy making up silly learning songs.
• Be brave.  You don’t need great music talent to use music.
• Find ready-made music.  Make sure the music is simple. It is good to hear the music before you buy it if possible.  Our phonics is taught with simple, short songs.  Contact us for Free music and books for teaching the phonetic sounds.     http://www.phonicsbyspelling.com/

Please share your success with using music to teach with us.  

Chunky Junk

Chunky Junk

( This is fun to make when teaching the “NG” sound as in SING, KING, JUNK.  If an “N” is followed by a “K” the “N” has the “NG” sound.)

1. Melt in the micro wave for 1 minutes:

• 20 marshmallows
• ½ cube of butter
• ½ cup of peanut butter

 2. Stir and melt for 1 more minute.

 3.  Mix in:

• 1 cup Oat O’s cereal
• 1 cup Crispy Rice cereal
• 1 cup pretzels
• ½ cup peanuts
• ½ cup raisins
• ½ cup chocolate chips
• ½ cup M & Ms

4.  Spread out in buttered pan.

 5.  Cool and enjoy.

Weather Review

 

Objective:  To review weather.

Preparation:

• Find pictures or drawings of weather in books, magazines, internet, or old calendars.
• Have crayons, pencils or markers to finish the books.
• Print the template for the weather book.  Cut into 2 pages. Use half a sheet of construction paper for the cover.
•  weather book template page 1    weather book template page 2  
• Suggested Book: Weather by Gallimard Jeunesse

Lesson:

Read the book and discuss:

• Discuss any pictures of weather. 
• Discuss what weather the children have seen.
• Review ideas from other weather lessons. 

Activity:

Help the kids make their weather book by reading and discussing each page as they work. When finished, read the book together.

Suggested Discussion questions:

• What do you wear when it’s snowy; rainy; etc. ?
• What kinds of activities can you do when it’s snowy; rainy; etc.?

 

 

 

   

Check out our website: http://www.phonicsbyspelling.com/

Weather: Rain and Snow

    

Weather: Rain and Snow      

Objective: Help children learn about the water cycle and how water is a part of our weather.

Preparation:

• Find drawings or pictures of rain, snow and other storms from books, magazines or old calendars.
• Collect a pan, water, a cookie sheet, and a stove or something to heat the water.
• Make word cards; evaporation, water cycle, water vapor, and condensation. 
• Have crayons, pencils or markers.
• Scraps of construction paper in white, dark blue, green and yellow.
• Print the water cycle on light blue or white paper. water-cycle-picture   If you do this activity with older children, they can write all the words.  
• Create a sample water cycle.

Suggested books:

• Cloudy with a Chance Of Meatballs by Judi Barrett
• Franklin and the Thunderstorm by Paulette Bourgeois
• What Makes it Rain? by Keith Brandt

Lesson:

Read a book then discuss water weather:

Discussion questions:

1. How do you feel when it rains?
2. Are you afraid of storms, if so why do they scare you?
3. What activities do you like to do in the rain?
4. Where do you think rain comes from?
5. What other weather has water in it?  (snow, hail)

Demonstrate “condensation” and “evaporation” by heating a small pot of water on the stove. Heat the water until you see steam.  Show the “water vapor” and “evaporation” cards.  Say, “The steam is water vapor or evaporation.”  Hold the cookie sheet above the water.  Show how the water condensate on the cookie sheet. Show the word card “condensation. Say, “If we hold this cookie sheet for a long time above the water it will start dropping rain. 

Activity: Help children learn about the water cycle by making a water cycle collage picture.  (Tearing paper is a skill that most children have to be taught.)

• Give each child a sheet of light blue or white water cycle picture paper.
• Tear dark blue paper big enough to fill half of the bottom part of the paper to look like the ocean. Have the children glue it on their paper by the word “ocean”.
• Tear a sun shape of yellow. Have the children glue it by the word “sun” above the ocean. Talk about how the sun heats the water and causes it to evaporate. Help them write “sun” on the sun.
• Tear a piece of white paper and have the children shade it with gray with the side of a crayon to look like a rain cloud. Have the children glue it on their paper opposite the sun by the words, “rain cloud”. (Explain how the droplets of water vapor come together and cool to make a cloud and when they get too heavy they condensate on bits of dust and begin to fall to the earth as snow or rain depending on how cold they are.)
• Have the children draw the rain coming from the cloud by the word, “rain” below the cloud. Discuss the ways the rain helps all living things and all the benefits of rain and storms.
• Tear a piece of green or brown paper to look like a slope of land coming down to meet the ocean. Have the children glue it next to the ocean piece of paper by the word “land”.
• Tear a strip of blue paper to look like a river. Have the children glue it on the slope of land by the word, “river”. Talk about the collection of rain into rivers, lakes and oceans
• Read all the words on the picture together.

Check out our website: http://www.phonicsbyspelling.com/

Symbols of The USA–The Statue of Liberty

 

The Statue of Liberty

Objective: To introduce children to The Statue of Liberty as a symbol of USA promise of freedom. 

Preparation:

• Find drawings or pictures of The Statue of Liberty from books, magazines or old calendars.
• Have green crayons, pencils or markers and paper for the children.  (Print,”The Statue of Liberty” on the paper.)
• Suggested book:   The Statue of Liberty by Lucille Recht Penner

Lesson:

• Read the book then discuss while showing pictures:
• The Statue of Liberty is one of the most recognizable symbols of the United States in the world. For many visitors traveling by sea in days gone by, the statue located on Liberty Island, in New York harbor, was their first glimpse of America.
• The statue symbolizes liberty and democracy.
• The Statue of Liberty is a huge sculpture that is located on Liberty Island in New York Harbor. This monument was a gift to the USA from the people of France.
• Liberty was designed by the French sculptor Frederic Auguste Bartholdi. The hollow copper statue was built in France – it was finished in July, 1884.  It was brought to the USA in 350 pieces on a French ship.  The statue was reassembled in the USA and was completed on October 28, 1886.
• Liberty’s right hand holds a torch that is a symbol of liberty. There are 354 steps inside the statue and its pedestal. There are 25 viewing windows in the crown. The seven rays of Liberty’s crown symbolize the seven seas and seven continents of the world. Liberty holds a tablet in her left hand that reads “July 4, 1776” (in Roman numerals).
• This is the poem that is mounted on the base of the statue.  Emma Lazarus wrote it.

Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame,
with conquering limbs astride from land to land;
Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand
a mighty woman with a torch, whose flame
is the imprisoned lightning, and her name
Mother of Exiles. From her beacon-hand
Glows world-wide welcome; her mild eyes command
The air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame,
“Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp!” cries she
with silent lips. “Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore,
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!”

Discussion questions:

• What is liberty?  — the power of choice.
• What is a symbol? —  something visible that by association or convention represents something else that is invisible.
• What are some other symbols of our country? — The Flag, Eagle, etc.

Activities:

• Draw the statue. Give each child a paper and a green pencil or crayon. Help the children draw the statue one step at a time. Wait to start each step until all children have completed the previous step.
• Pictures of the kids: Take each child one at a time. Wrap a green sheet around the child and attach at shoulder. Have them wear a Statue of Liberty headband (you can get them from Liberty Tax or have them make one). Give them a flashlight to hold in their left hand. In their right hand give them a small poster board with “July 4th 1776” written on it. Have them pose like the Statue of Liberty and take a picture.

http://www.phonicsbyspelling.com/

Measuring

Measuring  (Good math lesson to teach the week the short I is taught.)

Objective: Introduce children to measuring, inches and the tools and words used in measuring.

Preparation:

• Make a word card for Measuring.
• Have measuring tools like cups, measuring spoons, tape measure, ruler, etc.
• Have small objects to measure with a ruler.  (books, blocks, crayons, pencils, tools, toys, etc.)
• Have a wall measuring poster to measure each child.  Plan to leave this on the wall and measure again in the spring.
• Print and make a small book (4 pages) for each child.  inches book
• Get stickers 1 inch square, 3 in. square sticky note pad, yarn cut in 4 in. pieces.
• Have a ruler for each child.
• Suggested book:   ME and the Measure of Things , by Joan Sweeney

Lesson:

• Put up the word card “Measuring”.  Talk about some of the sounds in the word.  (Mm, _s_)
• Read the book and show some measuring tools and discuss how they are used.
• Measure the height of each child on the measuring poster on the wall.
• Have each child select one of the objects to measure or have them pick an object from the room.  Measure each object with a ruler.
•  (You may also want to use a balance scale, ounce scale or postal scale to weigh the small objects.)

Activity:

Give each child the book, Inches.   Help them read the questions? Help them measure and glue items to the page.  Have them write the number of inches on the line.  On the last page have them draw a picture of themselves and write how many inches tall each child is.

Read the book together.

More ideas for teaching young children. http://www.phonicsbyspelling.com/

Lesson Plan Ideas For the SH Sound

Digraph SH        

Objective:  To recognize the SH sound and compare with the Ss sound.

Preparation:

• Be prepared to talk about “Sh! Baby’s Sleeping”.  We have phonics songs, pictures, games, worksheets/readers (The Other Sounds), and lesson plans on our website.   (www.phonicsbyspelling.com)
• Collect some pictures with the SH sound at the beginning or end and pictures with the Ss sound.
• Decide on a worksheet and/or She reader from CD.  (Great reproducible worksheets and readers in our The Other Sounds CD. )  Free sample from CD.     Worksheet sh with pictures
• Copy the Nursery Rhyme, “There Was an Old Woman”.

Lesson:

Listen to at least 10 songs in Phonics By Spelling books including Ss and Sh. 

Replay the “Sh! Baby’s Sleeping” song.   Have you heard people make the SH sound? (Church, someone is sleeping, bedtime, library) Make your lips small and make the SH sound with me.  Compare with the Ss sound.

Read the Nursery Rhyme, “There Was an Old Woman”.

•  There was an old woman who lived in a shoe.
• She had so many children she didn’t know what to do.
• She gave them some broth,
• Without any bread.
• She whipped them all soundly, and sent them to bed.

 What words in the Nursery Rhyme had the “Sh! Baby’s Sleeping” sound?  Count how many times the word “she” is in the rhyme.  What other sounds did you hear in the rhyme?

Put a sticker on each child’s right hand just above the wrist.  As you show pictures of things, ask them to raise their right hand if they hear the “Sh! Baby’s Sleeping” sound.   Have them raise their left hand if the picture has the Ss sound (Water in the Sink).  Put some words on the wall card or word wall.  (she, show, wish, chef, action, social)

Activities:

Do together a worksheet and/or the She reader.

Read So Many Bunnies by Rick Walton.

Teaching Shapes is a fun follow-up.