Ready, Set, Read! Letter T

It's tempting to think that I could overuse the letter T in this text, but I will try not to. :)

I'm slow going on the posts, but hopefully I can catch up over the next few days! Ready, Set, Read! was last Thursday. It went swimmingly compared to the  first installment of the class, so huzzah for that.

I started class with a basket of items: tiger, train, truck. I held them up, and asked the kids to guess what the letter of the evening was. I showed them how to draw a T on the white board, made a list of T words that they came up with, and then I asked them how they could make a letter T with their bodies. We stood up and stuck our arms out to make Ts! I try to employ different methods of learning for each type of learner...and the kids really liked the gross motor skill portion.

You read that correctly.

I like to do read aloud books for each class, and this one is no different. Too Much Tooting is an easy reader, and not super fabulous for a story time book, however I wanted to give them a auditory example of the letter T in action. And just look at the title. I mean, if you didn't see the pictures in this book, what would you think it was about? Just try to read this with a straight face...even the kids in the audience were coming up with fart jokes after it was over. It was a good choice.

We then broke out into stations. I let the parents and kids choose whatever they want to do from a variety of fun stuff. I added a new activity this week: making the letter of the evening from play-doh. I think all the kids hit this station at least once. The least used station: worksheets. Not going to waste the paper anymore!

Turnip casserole, anyone?

After some station-action, we gathered back up for our last read-aloud: The Turnip retold by Harriet Ziefert. As another easy reader, not the greatest pick for a traditional story time setting, but a good pick for us. The story is timeless: farmer needs help pulling the huge turnip and employs whoever is around to pull, pull, pull!

I had easy reader books pulled for the kids to check out with the topics: toad, Thursday, turtle, turnip, Thomas the Train, trucks, etc.

The parent feedback has been great for this class. Any suggestions from Libraryland?

Next post: K6 Roundup!