Devon Hamner

Devon teaches at West Lawn Elementary School in Grand Island, Nebraska. About her work, Devon explains, "I have the best job in the whole world! I teach kindergartners! I get to watch them grow as readers, writers, thinkers, and problem-solvers as we explore our world together."

Devon graduated summa cum laude from Augustana College, with degrees in both Elementary Education and English. She received her Master of Arts in Curriculum and Instruction from Doane College.

With thirty years of teaching experience, Devon’s area of expertise is primary education, especially language arts instruction. She is a member of NCTE and the Whole Language Umbrella (WLU), the Central Nebraska Reading Association, the Nebraska Reading Association. the Grand Island Education Association, Nebraska State Education Association, and the National Education Association. She is an active participant on the TAWL (Teachers Applying Whole Language) listserv.

Lessons on ReadWriteThink

Authentic Writing Experiences and Math Problem-Solving Using Shopping Lists (K-2)
This activity allows students to use their emerging writing skills to write their own shopping lists. Students are highly motivated to work within a budget, use their problem-solving skills to create shopping lists, and buy their favorite treats at the class store.

From Stop Signs to the Golden Arches: Environmental Print  (K-2)
Teachers have long surrounded young students with a print-rich environment within the classroom, but the purpose of this lesson is to bring the print-rich environment of the community into the classroom through the use of environmental print, enabling emergent readers to delight in the realization that they are indeed readers.

Growing Readers and Writers with Help from Mother Goose (K-2)
Children can learn rhythm and rhyme from nursery rhymes. But those same poems can be used to help young students make connections to letters, sounds, and word chunks. Let Mother Goose help children grow as readers and writers!

Have Journal...Will Travel: Promoting Family Involvement in Literacy  (K-2)
This project is designed to engage families in shared literacy activities. The students take turns taking home a book bag that includes a stuffed toy, a book, art supplies, a topic to discuss with their families, and a journal to share their thoughts and ideas. Through the experience they build positive memories of literacy activities.

How Does My Garden Grow? Writing in Science Field Journals (K-2)
While scientists are working, they often keep journals to document observations, gather information, sketch pictures, write down questions, form a hypothesis, and record reactions. In this lesson plan, students will be keeping their own science field journal as a log of a classroom gardening project.

Improving Fluency through Group Literary Performance (K-2)
Repeated readings and literary performances help students with their reading accuracy, expression, and rate. In this lesson, students participate in shared reading, choral reading, and readers theater, focusing their exploration on picture books by Bill Martin, Jr.

Introducing the Venn Diagram in the Kindergarten Classroom  (K-2)
Graphic organizers are valuable learning tools, but can a Venn diagram be used by kindergarten kids? Yes, if you make it hands-on and user-friendly! In this lesson, students use hula hoops and real objects, as well as online interactives, as they use Venn diagrams to problem solve, explore, and record information to share with others.

Investigating Animals: Using Nonfiction for Inquiry-based Research (K-2)
Students document their discoveries as they explore nonfiction, informational texts to investigate favorite animals. The lesson includes whole-group explorations and paired experiences between kindergarten students and upper-grade students.

Living the Dream: 100 Acts of Kindness  (K-2)
After studying about Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and what he believed in, students need the chance to apply those lessons. This is the action piece. This project allows students to participate in Dr. King’s dream by doing 100 acts of kindness. What better way to prove that we can make a difference? What better way to live the dream?

Mail Time! An Integrated Postcard and Geography Study (K-2)
Children love to receive mail. Can you imagine their excitement if they received a picture postcard at school? That’s what happens in this project! Children will write and receive postcards from friends and family, and then chart where all those postcards come from on their classroom map.

Martin Luther King, Jr. and Me: Identifying with a Hero  (K-2)
Martin Luther King, Jr. Day provides a great opportunity to teach about heroes. But how do we help our youngest students identify with an American hero like Martin Luther King, Jr., a man who lived and died long before they were even born? This lesson provides lots of ideas by encouraging students to explore the connections between Dr. King and themselves in journals and inquiry-based research.

Our Community: Creating ABC Books as Assessment (K-2)
What is one way we can we assess mastery of content standards with our youngest students in creative and engaging ways? By helping them create alphabet books! This integrated assessment can be used with science, health, social studies, and any other content area. This lesson plans looks at the theme of community.

Packing the Pilgrim’s Trunk: Personalizing History in the Elementary Classroom (K-2)
How can young students relate to historical events? How can they make connections to the past? The purpose of this theme is to help primary students form connections between their own lives and the lives of the Pilgrims—making history relevant.

Reading Everywhere with Dr. Seuss (K-2)
Using Dr. Seuss's Green Eggs and Ham as a model, students create a book and a PowerPoint or HyperStudio slide show to help them see all the wonderful places they can read. Where do you like to read? By the pool? At school? In a car? Beneath a star? Here? There? Everywhere!

What’s in a Name? Teaching Concepts of Letter and Word  (K-2)
The purpose of this lesson is to help kindergarten children understand the concepts of letter and word by using their names as a starting point. Ideas will also be given to help assess student progress in becoming readers and writers. What can you do with names? Just see!

Writing Poetry with Rebus and Rhyme (K-2)
This lesson encourages young students to use their developing knowledge of rhyming words to write rebus poetry modeled on rebus books, which substitute pictures for the harder words that young students cannot yet identify or decode.

Writing Reports in Kindergarten? Yes! (K-2)
This lesson encourages young students to see themselves as writers who have a message to convey. Three different types of reports are provided to show just what kindergartners and other young writers can do. Reports in kindergarten? Absolutely!