Doing More With Less Since 1972

Tag: 1st grade (Page 3 of 3)

Spell Anything! – Lesson Idea #11

  1. Write a word on a white board or other erasable surface and have your child read it aloud.
  2. Erase and change the first letter/last letter/middle letter – depending on what letters/sounds you are working with. Ask your child what the new word is.
  3. Repeat and repeat until you have a decent list of new words that you created just by changing certain letters.
  4. Have your child read the whole list – blending if necessary and then repeating them quickly to practice fluency. You can extend this activity by having them make up sentences using some or all of the words.
  5. Sample list:
  • start with the word “cup”
  • change the “p” to a “t” for the word “cut”
  • change the ” u” to an “a” for the word “cat”
  • change the “c” to an “h” for the word “hat
  • change the “h” to an “m” for the word “mat”
  • change the “m” to an “f” for the word “fat”
  • add an “s” to make the word “fast”
  • You can see how you can keep going and going with this. You can make this as easy or as hard as you’d like depending on what your child can do. Have fun with it!

Stretch It – Lesson Idea #10

  1. Tell your child that you are going to say a sentence and that they have to help you stretch it by adding a word to it to make it longer.
  2. Then you add another word and continue to take turns adding words until you have a long sentence (that still makes sense).
  3. For example: You say ” The kitten played.” Then it can become ” The white kitten played”, “The white kitten played outside.”, “The white kitten played outside with a ball.”, “The white kitten and the dog played outside with a ball.”, etc.
  • This game can be adapted for many different ages. You can leave it like it is for younger kids (and keep the sentences shorter) or you can add some requirements to make it harder for older kids. Add things like: “Now you have to add a noun, adjective, pronoun, adverb, etc.” or you can have them write out the sentence when finished. this is a great game for developing vocabulary and practicing extending sentences so that they are more detailed!

ABC Scramble – Lesson Idea #9

  1. When your child is not in the room, lay out some alphabet cards in a long row – make sure they are scrambled up and out of order.
  2. Tell your child that you’re not sure what happened, but there’s something seriously wrong with the alphabet and you need their help fixing the letters.
  3. Have your child try to put the letters in a row correctly. They can sing the alphabet or use an alphabet chart to help them out.
  • The sillier you get with this the better! You can make up different stories about what “happened” to the alphabet.

Pick Two – Lesson Idea #7

  1. Have a collection of pictures ready – including many that rhyme.
  2. Choose three pictures to show two your child and make sure that two of them rhyme. For example have a picture of a tree, a box, and a bee.
  3. Name each picture together and ask your child to pick the two pictures that rhyme.
  4. Start over and repeat as many times as is fun!
  • You can make this harder by adding more pictures and having them pick 3, 4, an so on. Or you can have them choose the pictures and make you pick two that rhyme!

Sack Sounds – Lesson Idea #6

  1. Get a sack or a bag large enough to hold several items.
  2. Have your child go through the house and fill the sack with several random objects.
  3. Meanwhile or beforehand, lay out some alphabet cards in a long row from A-Z on the floor or table.
  4. When your child’s bag is full, have them sort the objects by placing them under the alphabet letter that matches its beginning sound.
  • You can change this up by assigning a set number of items they must find for each target letter – great for review!

Letter Hunt Alphabet Book – Lesson Idea #5

You’ll need some newspaper, magazines, catalogs, coupons (any other print material you don’t mind cutting up) and some art supplies (construction paper, glue, scissors, markers, etc.) This one can be worked on over time – so it may take your child a while to complete the whole book. Part of the book can be created while you’re working on letter recognition and the other part can be completed when you work on letter sounds – so there will be two parts to this activity. Some of you may choose to do both pages at the same time – it’s up to you!

Part 1 – Page 1 for each letter

  1. Have your child hunt for and cut out several (up to 20) versions of the same letter (capital and lower case/big and small fonts) from different print material. You want these to look different so that your child learns to identify specific letters no matter the font or size.
  2. Label one piece of construction paper with the target letter at the top. Then your child can glue these letters onto the paper in any way they like as long as they are readable. Although it looks best when the letters are all mixed up and spaced out to cover the whole page, by all means give them creative freedom.

Part 2 – Page 2 for each letter

  1. Have your child hunt for and cut out pictures that begin with the target sound from the various print materials. Review the pictures your child found and discuss whether they’d be good or not to use for that letter.
  2. Your child can then glue the chosen pictures onto another price of construction paper. You can label each picture with a marker (have him/her dictate the names of the pictures to you or help them out). These picture serve to reinforce letter-sound correspondence and build their vocabulary.
  3. Repeat Part 1 and Part 2 for every letter in the alphabet.
  • You can put the pages together several ways: punching holes and tying it together or using rings, staple it, have it bound at an office supply store, etc. I do recommend that you get the pages laminated if possible. This book will be a great addition to your child’s library and is a lot of fun to make!

Word Switch – Lesson Idea #3

You’ll need a pocket chart and some word cards (you can make them with sentence strips) for this activity.

  1. Make or use some words cards to make up a few sentences from a book, rhyme, or song that your child is familiar with. Make sure to include capitals and punctuations.
  2. Read the sentences aloud to your child (or together if they can read with you). Then mix up the words in each sentence and read them aloud again.
  3. Your child will most likely start giggling and tell you there’s something wrong. Act surprise and like you don’t know what’s wrong. When they convince you that there’s a problem, ask your child to help you make the sentences right again. They can use the capital letter and the punctuation mark as hints.
  • You can skip the materials if you don’t have them and use a white board instead. Although kids really enjoy holding and manipulating the word cards – especially if they can’t write yet. The purpose here is to show your child that each word has meaning and that they work together to make sentences. If you move one or all of them around, it will affect how the sentence makes sense.
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