Additional Activities
These activities offer options for continuing the learning in this unit. Whether your curriculum is skill-based or more open-ended, select the activities that are most appropriate for the children in your classroom. The Writing Spot is primarily a writing program, but writing can be integrated throughout your curriculum—in art, drama, reading, math, and science.
-
Associate words with objects.
Put labels on dozens of things in the classroom. Play a game in which you call out a specific letter. The children walk around the room looking for labeled objects that begin with that letter. As they find them, they should try to read the words. This will help children to add to their sight-word lists. Use "Classroom Alphabet" if you wish.
-
Name the letters and sing the alphabet.
Prepare a set of large cards, each displaying a letter of the alphabet. Begin this activity with everyone sitting. Then give each child a card. Ask, “Who is the letter A?” The child with the A card answers, “I am the letter A,” stands up, shows the card to the group, and becomes the first person in a line. Continue playing, adding B, C, D, E, . . . until the whole alphabet is standing in line. (If you didn’t use all of the letter cards, ask children to tell who is missing. Then display those cards for the children to see.) End by singing the “A-B-C Song.” Use the "Alphabet Chart" as a prompt during the song.
For this activity, you will need several picture cards for each letter of the alphabet. Each card should be clearly marked with the letter of the alphabet that the picture represents. Have each child print the first letter of his or her first name and then find an alphabet card that matches that letter. When each child has a card, they may take turns saying the name of the picture. You respond, “That’s right. Mary and moon both begin with the letter m.” Children can also play with these cards by sorting them into letter piles.
-
Practice writing by using letter sounds.
Once children have a good sense of the sounds letters make, they can begin to write phonetically. Have interactive writing times when children contribute a word or sentence to a story and then attempt to write it. Praise their attempts and also write the words and sentences correctly as models for children to use. As children are able to write phonetically, they will grow as writers. Use "Writers use letters to make words" for this activity.
-
Learn that letters represent sounds.
Knowing letter sounds can be the key to writing for children. By using pictures and sight-words, children learn to match sounds with letters and can then create words to communicate their ideas. Practice making letter sounds for the beginning of simple words—fish, duck, house, sea. When children first try to write phonetically, don’t be critical about spelling and letter formation. Conveying ideas using letters and sounds is the initial goal. Once children are comfortable communicating in this way, they can work on improving the mechanics of their writing.
-
Play a game with letter sounds.
When children are confident about the sounds that letters make, play this game. Pin or tape a letter on the back of a child’s shirt so he or she cannot see it. The child then goes up to someone and asks, “What letter sound am I?” That child looks at the letter on the back of the shirt and says the sound that the letter makes. The first child must then guess what the letter is. Use only letters whose sounds children have learned.
Ask children to look for words on objects at home. Encourage them to bring, with permission, one thing from home that has words on it: a card, a food wrapper, a refrigerator magnet, a piece of notepaper, a package, junk mail, and so on. Talk about the items children found and how words are used to share ideas and information.
