Adapting the song "A-Hunting We Will Go," students put a whale in a pail and even "take a little bear and hug it if we dare."
A-Hunting We Will Go: Teaching Rhyming Through Musical Verse
The Big Green Monster Teaches Phonics in Reading and Writing
A big green monster helps students build their reading fluency and word recognition skills through choral reading, literacy center activities, and writing stories.
Spelling Cheerleading: Integrating Movement and Spelling Generalizations
"2-4-6-8, students will be spelling great" in this lesson that teaches the y rule for adding suffixes through cheering the spelling of words aloud, word sorts, and writing stories.
Hey Diddle, Diddle! Generating Rhymes for Analogy-Based Phonics Instruction
Students practice matching rhyming words, apply phonological awareness to analogy-based phonics, and use the interactive Construct-a-Word to create rhyming words by adding a beginning consonant to a word ending.
Word Sorts for Beginning and Struggling Readers
Students are introduced to short-vowel word families and learn to sort words alone and with a partner using the Word Family Sort activity.
Fact or Fiction: Learning About Worms Using Diary of a Worm
Students often believe that fiction writers make everything up, seldom realizing how research worms its way into entertaining writing. In this lesson, students read Diary of a Worm to find out how fact merges with fiction.
Going on a Shape Hunt: Integrating Math and Literacy
Students participate in a scavenger hunt for shapes; reading, writing, and discussion of shapes encourage literacy and math skills.
Readers Theatre With Jan Brett
Students in grades 1-2 use Jan Brett's Hedgie's Surprise for a Readers Theatre experience.
Using Personal Connections to Build an Understanding of Emotions
What makes you happy? What makes you sad? Connecting words to feelings enriches vocabulary and helps with concept development.
Writing Workshop: Helping Writers Choose and Focus on a Topic
Students engage in writing workshop, using a timeline to focus in on and write about a specific event.
Learning Vocabulary Down By the Bay
Students sing a popular children's song, follow along with a picture book that contains the lyrics and illustrations, and then participate in activities to reinforce learning of the vocabulary words.
Sentence Quest: Using Parts of Speech to Write Descriptive Sentences
Students learn about sentences by listing verbs, nouns, and adjectives. They use word cards to create descriptive sentences and work in groups to create the longest sentences they can.
Name Talk: Exploring Letter-Sound Knowledge in the Primary Classroom
Students demonstrate their letter/sound knowledge by working with name cards and sharing observations about their classmates' names, giving teachers an opportunity to assess knowledge in a meaningful context.
Amelia Bedelia Up Close! Closely Reading a Classic Story
Through a close reading of Amelia Bedelia, students reread the material to discuss text-dependent questions, promoting deep thinking about the text and its characters.
Awareness of Alliteration: Enhancing Writing Through Mentor Texts
Through this lesson, primary students strengthen their phonemic awareness while using picture books featuring alliteration as models for their own writing.
Using American Sign Language to Improve Comprehension and Vocabulary
American Sign Language is combined with the hilarious poetry and pictures of Sam's Sandwich, a lift-the-flap book, to engage all types of learners in acquiring key vocabulary.
Shhh! Bear's Sleeping: Learning About Nonfiction and Fiction Using Read-Alouds
Students explore the distinction between the fiction story Bear Snores On and the nonfiction book Every Autumn Comes the Bear.
Descriptive Writing and the 100th Day of School
Students write descriptions of 100th day bottles they create at home, write clues about their bottles for a guessing game, practice descriptive writing, and create a class book.
Shared Poetry Reading: Teaching Print Concepts, Rhyme, and Vocabulary
The rhyme and reason behind this lesson is that students will need to develop important reading skills to increase their reading fluency.
Teaching About Story Structure Using Fairy Tales
From "once upon a time" to "happily ever after," students learn to recognize story structure in fairy tales and create a logical sequence of events when writing original stories.