Reading Archives - Page 3 of 3

{Read.Explore.Learn.} Reading Activities with an Apple Theme

September 27, 2013 By Deirdre

Apples is a wonderful picture book that shares tons of information about apples. The illustrations help young readers picture walk through the book. There is a lot of text on each page and many young readers will need to have this book read to them. It is so worth reading with them even if it is only a page or two at a time.

The book shares how bees help pollinate apple blossoms, young trees are encourage to grow, the history of the apple and so much more. My son loves to know why things are they way they are. This book shared with him a bounty of information on apples. He really liked the history of apples the best. It discuss ancient Greece and Rome. JDaniel is really into that time period right now.

As I mentioned the illustrations are wonderful. Phyllis Limbacher Tildes pictures really illustrate what the text is sharing. I think you will really enjoy exploring this book.

What did we do to explore this book?

Working with Syllables

When I was teaching syllables were taught in second grade, now identifying syllables is taught as a pre reading activity. JDaniel came home with worksheet focusing on syllables. I decided maybe we should work on them at home too.

I used the same template I created of the math activities last week to create syllable cards with apple themed words on them. JDaniel and I sounded out the words on the cards and clapped the number of syllables each word has.

Then he put a paper clip over the number of syllables each word has. We had fun clapping and clipping. This maybe a style of task card that I make for him again and again for reading activities and other content area skills.

Easy Sight Word Snacks

September 23, 2013 By Deirdre

Last week I participated in Megan of Coffee Cups and Crayons Coffee Break on Google+. I was an awesome opportunity to share how we made apple chips and to hear about other snacks Mom Bloggers have shared with their children. Kelly of Smart School House shared some alphabet letter chips made with tortillas. They got me to thinking. JDaniel loves cheese on tortillas and I need to work with him on sight words.Why not take out my tiny letter cookie cutters I thought and make him a sight word snack with cheese and tortillas? It would be easy to put together and he would inhale the words after reading them to me.He loved finding them sitting on the kitchen table when he came home from school. The cheese has melted a tiny bit due the warmth of the day pouring into the kitchen window. He liked that unplanned added touch.The success of this sight words snack got me excited. I have been thinking of other foods I could use to create the snacks that spell out sight words.

Food Learning Activities Beyond Sight Word Snacks:

small lengths of celery with cream cheese could be used to build letters.
string cheese could be peeled into strings to form letters
small letter cookies
cinnamon toast cut with cookie cutters
cheese cracker Scrabble letters from the store
alphabet cookies from Trader Joes
potato sticks could be used to form letters
apple slices could be cut out with cookie cutters
cold spaghetti could be bent into letters
cookie cutters could be pushed into fruit leather to create words

My brain was reeling with ideas. I think I may have to create a whole series on sight word snacks. JDaniel would love to taste test them for me and I would get to help him work on sight words. Snacks give him a hands on way to interact with sight words and his taste buds get to participate too.

Brace yourself sight word snacks will be appearing on the blog every couple of weeks until I run out of them. If you have an idea for me to try, leave it in a comment below. If you like one of the ideas on the list and would like to see how it could be carried out, you can leave me a comment too.

Simple and Fun Reading Strategies- How to Teach a Slug to Read

September 13, 2013 By Deirdre

Links below are affiliate links.

How to Teach a Slug to Read shares the steps a slug goes through to learn to read. If you want to teach a slug or child how to read, you will easily be able to follow these steps. They are simple and fun reading strategies.

Simple and Fun Reading Strategies- How to Teach a Slug to Read

Without giving to much away here are some of the steps:

Put labels on his favorite things.
Read books your slug will be interested in.
Show your slug words that they will see over and over again.
Help him sounds out the words in the book.

We loved the commentary between the slug and his mom on each page. They have the best chats about each step. The pictures in this book are wonderful too. I confess we have giggled a lot as we read this fun book.

What did we do to explore this book with reading strategies?

We looked at several simple and fun reading strategies from the book and from my experience as a teacher.

Highlight a Page from a Book

The book suggested that highlighting favorite words in a text. Rather than actually highlighting in a book I found a passage online about slugs for JDaniel and I read together. I read JDaniel the text and he highlighted fun slug related words.

We will try this activity again. I may photocopy a page from a favorite book or find passage online again. It is a great way to work on building vocabulary and learning new words.

This same activity could be used to find sight words or words with specific sounds in them. You may decide to keep a journal of found words or maybe even create a homemade dictionary of them.

Slug Reading Guide

A paper slug glued onto a stick made a simple reading guide. What is a reading guide? Well, it is a pointer or flat tool that can help children focus on one line of text at time. The guide was put together so that the slugs slime line would be right under the text. The slug’s eyes could be used to find and point to particular words or areas of text by holding the stick so the slug’s eyes are lined up with the words. This is great way to look for sight words.

Reading guides are so easy to make. You may want to make different guides for each theme or unit of study you are doing.

Slug Tracking Guide

Learning how to track your finger while reading text can be done using a folder with solid lines where the text would be. Dotted lines connect the solid lines and mimic the movement your fingers would making as they move from one line to the next. The lines can me drawn in any color you like. I chose yellow so the lines would like like slug slime lines. Yes, my guy got to run his finger right over drawn slime! How cool and gross at the same time. This activity is great reading warm up and help put into muscle memory the flow of text in a book.

Anticipation Building

We did one more activity to go along with this book. I will be putting it up next week. It was such fun I thought it needed a post of its own.

Reading tools and strategies can help young slugs and young children learn to read. Do you have a favorite reading tool or strategy for helping children learn to read?

Disclaimer: This post contains affiliate links.

17 Rainy Day Books for Kids

July 13, 2013 By Deirdre

Whether you are working on a weather unit, exploring rain books in April or just looking for a fun book to read on a rainy day, you will find at least one you will love in this collection of 17 rainy day books for kids.

Rainy Day Books for Kids

Dinosaur Thunderis the story of a little boy who is afraid of thunder during a rainstorm. Each member of his family shares with him a story about what could be making that horrible noise. After several explanations from his older family members, his brother shares with him something he can relate too. He tells him the noise comes from dinosaurs. “I love dinosaurs!” the boy responds. He is still scared, but knowing they are dinosaurs helps him be less scared.

Rain! by Linda Ashman (2013-03-05)is a wonderful story about how a little girl and an old man feel about rain. One of the grumbles and gripes. The other rejoices and enjoys it. When one runs into the other, they both learn to love rain.

Come On, Rain! is so well written. The text flows throughout the book painting a beautiful picture of people sweltering in the heat waiting for rain. When the rain arrives, there is much dancing and frolicking that happens. Moms and their daughter rejoice in the rain. The pictures in this book are gorgeous..

Rain Schoolexplains that in the country of Chad there are heavy rains that wash away some of the mud and thatched roof schools. Each year the children join their teachers in building a new school. The children learn to work together while they build the school and learn together once the school is built.

Rain by Robert Kalan uses amazing pictures by Donald Crew and wonderful words to show you the effects of rain. It explores colors and words is such a wonderful way. This is a fun book to picture walk through.

Splish! Splash!: A Book About Rain (Amazing Science: Weather)uses simple text and wonderful illustrations to explain the science behind rain. Non-fiction lovers will enjoy learning about rain.

Down Comes the Rain follows the ups and down of rain as it travels through the water cycle. Where does rain go after it falls from the sky? How does it get into the sky?

Bringing the Rain to Kapiti Plain (Rise and Shine)some people and animals long for rain to fall. I love the rhythm of this book it just flows. This is a wonderful book about yearning for rain.

Are You Ready to Play Outside? (An Elephant and Piggie Book) (An Elephant and Piggie Book, 7)shares that there are some the love rain and others that don’t. Sometimes those that don’t just need someone fun to enjoy it with. You can’t just watch people enjoy rain. Seeing them love it makes you want to join in.

The Rain Came Down and changed everyone moods. Will their moods change when the sun comes out?

The Big Storm: A Very Soggy Counting Book features animals running to get out of a storm when they see clouds gathering. After a night of huddling in a shelter, they hear rumbling and grumbling. Is it another storm or is it something else?

The Aunts Go Marching is about a little girl who marches through the rain followed by a large group of aunts. I love the song about ants marching two by two. This book with aunt marching is just as fun. You will love the pictures in this book

Rain (Rise and Shine) is a beautifully illustrated book about how a group of African animals uses their senses to know the rain is coming. This would fit well in a unit about the senses or about the rain.

Red Rubber Boot Day is the tale of a young boy and what he does when it rains. He starts off the day finding inside things to do like building a fort and moves outside to splash and play in red rubber boots. My son had red rubber boots when he was 3 and 4 that he lived in. This book reminds me of him.

The Puddle explains that while children love rain puddles there are animals that love the rain too. What fun it is to see who comes by to enjoy the puddle.

Raindrop, Plop! counts the joyous things that children find in the rain. What fun it is to count in the rain! This books has wonderful illustrations. The cover just makes you want to jump into reading it.

Flash, Crash, Rumble, and Roll is a science focused book that shares what makes all of the elements of a storm from rain to thunder to lightning. I used to use this in my weather unit when I taught second grade.

You will find more collections of books for kids on a wide variety of themes on my Collections of Book by Theme page on Pinterest. You will find a number right here on JDaniel4’s Mom too. There are Awesome Books for Kids about Fables, Spotlight on Remarkable Mystery Books for Kids and Jokes for Kids Books That Will Make Them Laugh.

Do you have a rainy day book that you love that isn’t on this list? Tell me about it via a comment below.

Disclosure: This post contains affiliate links.

Rosie Sprout’s Time to Shine- Read.Explore.Learn.

April 26, 2013 By Deirdre

JDaniel and I were browsing at the library last week when I noticed the book Rosie Sprout’s Time to Shine sitting on top of the shelves. I have been wanting to start some spring planting projects with JDaniel so, I took it down and added it to our library pile. It is a wonderful book. The librarian that set it up on the shelf deserves my thanks!

In the story Rosie Sprout’s Time to Shine Rosie isn’t the star of her class at school. Violet is the star and everyone else in the class agreed that she was. Well, everyone except Rosie. She was tired of hearing everyone praise Violet including Violet. Yes, she did everything well, but enough was enough.When everyone is asked to decorate a flower pot, Violet’s is the best decorated and Rosie contained a simple heart. Rosie and Violet are the first to have a sprout, but Violet shouts it out first. When Violets starts to be taller than Rosie’s, she can’t take it. Rosie has to push soil over top of it.

Rosie regrets her mistake when she finds out that Violet has the chicken pox and won’t be able to tend to her plant. That is when Rosie really shines. She is the best she can be and she is the best friend she can be. Rosie sings and tends to both her plant and Violet’s.

You will have to read Rosie Sprout’s Time to Shine to see what happens when Violet gets back from being sick. Just know that this really is Rosie’s time to shine.

What did we do to explore Rosie Sprout’s Time to Shine?

Number Recognition

JDaniel and I worked with homemade pea pods. Some of the peas had number represented by numbers. Some peas had numbers represented by dots. Some of the peas had numbers represented by triangles.

The goal was to put the three peas that belonged together in the same pod.

Letter and Sound Match

This pea pod letter and sound matching activity is just like the math pea pod activity. The goals was to find the three peas that belonged in the same pod together.

When pod had its three pods, it should have an uppercase letter, a lowercase letter, and an object that began with that letter. I was really pleased to see that JDaniel could match each of the letters quickly and find the right picture for each pod. He did change the game a little, but I will share that story with you next Wednesday. It deserves its on post.

Decorating a Flower Pot

JDaniel was asked to paint whatever he wanted to on this flower pot. Rosie was told to decorate her post anyway that she wanted to and I told JDaniel the same thing.

He really wasn’t into painting the afternoon I set out the paint and flower pot. He painted the jellyfishes bell shape and didn’t want to paint the tentacles. I talked him in to doing some if I did some too.

I wasn’t surprised that this pot as a jellyfish them. We read books about them everyday. You may remember I even made him a jellyfish mobile for his room.

Disclaimer: This post contains affiliate links.

Activities for Children – Learning with Paper Bag Bears

April 19, 2013 By Deirdre

What a Wonderful World was a in a recent collection of books I was sent from Tiger Tales. It is wonderful tale told by a mother bear to her cub. She shares with them that we need to be thankful for each and everything placed on Earth for us to share. This book is filled with thanks to God the simply wonderful world we live in. The illustrations show the bears at the shore, the a field of flowers, in the forest and some much more. I love the warm illustrations. They draw you in and make you want to visit those same places to take them in and offer thanks for them. This wonderful book inspired a multitude of learning activities for children.

What activities for children we did with the book?

I went to JDaniel’s school with a bunch of paper bags and used the Ellison to cut out a bunch of bears. We have a lot of brown paper bag and I thought we should use them in honor of Earth Day. Paper bags really make a great material for learning activities. Decorate and Weave

Activities with Children - Learning with Paper Bag Bears

I had JDaniel decorate the front of the one of the big bears. Then we punched holes around the edge of two of the bears stacked on top of each other and wove them together.

Tell Me Your Favorite Part

JDaniel was given a couple of big brown paper bears and I had him decorate them based on things that were asked on a couple of index cards. I wanted him to draw his favorite part of the book, his favorite place, and something he is thankful for.
Alphabetical Order

The bears were lined up on the floor in alphabetical order.

Before and After

I asked JDaniel to find the letters that came before and after a letter a placed on the table. It really made me think about letters.

Match the Letter to an Object

I had JDaniel pick a letter and then find an object in the kitchen that matched that letter. We ended up with a lot of cooking tools. I think we should try this in his room and see what treasures he find there.

Write the Letter in Salt

JDaniel wrote each letter he selected in a salt tray. We focused on uppercase letters this time. I think we will move on to lowercase letters next time. JDaniel decided he needed to trace the bear and then write the letter.He did a great job on these.Counting Buttons

JDaniel practiced one to one correspondence by placing the correct number of button on each bear on a card.

Write the Number

Then JDaniel practice writing those numbers in the salt I had placed in a tray.

Shape the Number

JDanel loves buttons. I had him form the number using some buttons I had placed in a cup.

Here are some other activities for children I know you will love:

Making Learning Fun with Rainbows

Kids Sensory Learning Activities

Outdoor Activities and Learning Games

What other activities for children could we do with these bears?

Disclaimer: This post contains affiliate links. I was sent the book What Wonderful World by Tiger Tales Books to review. All thought about it are my own.

Footwear Learning Activities- Read.Explore.Learn.

April 12, 2013 By Deirdre

When I was packing for our Spring Break Trip, I found that shoes were what I needed to think about the most. We needed sneakers or hiking boots for hiking. My sister Shell had planned a messy caving activity that would require shoes that could be super messy. The trip included attending Shell church for Easter Sunday. JDaniel doesn’t have dress shoes so, I packed sandals for him. That is three pair of shoes for just one of us. With making shoe choices I my mind I selected the book What Shoes Would You Choose? (Rookie Toddler) to explore this week. After reading the book, we did a number of learning activities with a homemade set of shoe work mats.

Which Shoes Would You Choose? is a really cute book about a selecting the right shoes for each activity. The main character Sherman wear flip flops to the beach, but should he wear them hiking. He wear hiking boots to hike, but should he wear them to play tennis.

We talked a lot about why some types of shoe could be worn to do more than one activity, but others could not. The wonderful illustration in the book by Nancy Cole lead to discussions about different places Sherman visits and plays.

What learning activities did we do while exploring this book?

Footwear Learning Activities- Read.Explore.Learn.

I created a bunch of different types of shoes out of construction paper and glued them onto blank index cards. There were rain boots, hiking boots, flip flops, roller skates, and flippers. We used the cards for each of the activities we did this week.

Find Them in the Book

The first thing we did was look for each of the types of footwear in the book. Once we found them we talked about how my construction paper creations were alike or different from the ones Nancy Cole had drawn.

Where Else Could We Wear Them?

On our Spring Break Trip JDaniel ended up with only two pair of shoes in his suitcase. He had his sneakers and a pair of sandals. I had decided to really scrub his sneakers if they got messy. Sherman probably could have worn some of this footwear other places too.

We made list of all the places each type of shoe on the cards could be worn. It ended up being a great discussion.

Arrange By Size

Some of the footwear I created ended up being really small and others filled the whole card. That is what happens when you cut things out freehand. I asked JDaniel to arrange the cards from smallest to largest.

Color Identification

JDaniel was asked to tell me what color each shoe was and and find something in our kitchen that was the same color. Thankfully I had purchased purple grapes this week at the store. He would have had a hard time finding something purple otherwise.

Land vs. Water

We then sorted the cards into two groups land worn shoes and water worn shoes. It was very interesting to hear how JDaniel worked through this task. He decided that roller skates could be only worn on land and flippers only worn in the water. The rest of the footwear could be worn both places.

JDaniel told me that both pairs of boots could be worn in puddles of water or on land. He did wear his red rain boots most of last spring just because he loved them. He also wore his hiking boots everywhere this past fall and winter. He told me his sneakers have been worn as he walked through puddles and dipped into creeks. If I had said worn on land or in the ocean it would probably have been better.

Initial Consonant

Since JDaniel has started speech lessons, he has been very big into initial consonant sounds. He will announce the beginning sounds of a word he has been thinking of out of the blue.

I decided to have him tell me the beginning sound of each of the types of footwear. Since several of them have more than one word in their name, he got to practice several beginning sounds.

What are some other ways we could have used the footwear cards?

How did you explore books this week? If you have a post you would like to share, please link it up below. Once you have added your post, please visit at least three other posts.

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