Mr. Peabody’s Apple addendum

I found this on A-Z Teacher forum. I thought it would make a nice addendum to my review on Mr. Peabody’s Apples by Madonna.

I use Madonna’s book Mr. Peabody’s Apples on the first day to introduce my glue activity. If you haven’t heard about this book it deals with how powerful our words are. It is an AWESOME book. I heard about it last summer at Great Expectations. 

After reading the book I do the activity.

To do the glue activity:

Each group needs one plate with glue. (I squeeze the glue out for each group)

Each student needs one toothpick.

I tell the kiddos that they have five minutes to get the glue back into the glue bottle using only their toothpicks. This of course is impossible.

After their time is up we talk about how the glue signifies our words and once they come out we can’t put them back in. That if you don’t have something nice to say than CHOOSE to say nothing at all.

I’ve used this two years now and the kiddos LOVE it!

Another activity I use is writing all the bad things we have been called or called someone else on toilet paper and flushing them down the potty.

I also have them decorate hearts and we crumple them as we pass them around. We discuss how we can unfold it but we can never completely smooth it out again and that their actions could damage someone else forever.

I hope this helps! I believe in teaching procedures the first week and mixing in activities like these. I always try to put in an activity like this when I see the kids not using their best manners with each other. I stress “Treating others how you want to be treated” all year long. I think it really helps with discipline!

Literacy Milestones (Age 5)

Taken directly from Reading Rockets.com

By: Andrea DeBruin-Parecki, Kathryn Perkinson, and Lance Ferderer (2000)

Identifying a reading problem is a challenge without a sense for what typical literacy development looks like. Find out what language accomplishments are typical for most children at age five.

Most children learn to read by age 7. Learning to read is built on a foundation of language skills that children start learning at birth – a process that is both complicated and amazing. Most children develop certain skills as they move through the early stages of learning language.

The following list of such accomplishments is based on current research in the field, where studies continue and there is still much to learn. As you look over the list, keep in mind that children vary a great deal in how they develop and learn.

If you have questions or concerns about your child’s progress, talk with your child’s doctor, teacher, or a speech and language therapist. For children with any kind of disability or learning problem, the sooner they can get the special help they need, the easier it will be for them to learn.

At age 5, most kindergartners become able to:

• Sound like they are reading when pretending to read
• Enjoy being read to and retell simple stories
• Use descriptive language to explain or to ask questions
• Recognize letters and letter-sound matches
• Show familiarity with rhyming and beginning sounds
• Understand that print is read left-to-right and top-to-bottom
• Begin to match spoken words with written ones
• Begin to write letters of the alphabet and some words they use and hear often
• Begin to write stories with some readable parts

Happy 4th of July!

Happy 4th of July to everyone! Be careful!