About the Book
This unique resource helps educators spark young children's interest in learning the alphabet and develop beginning reading skills right from the beginning to the close of school. Included are over 500 ready-to-use individual and classroom activities designed to be used sequentially, from one month to the next, to build skills, relate reading to other curriculum areas, and foster children's enthusiasm for books and learning to read. All activities are organized into nine monthly sections, September through May/June, and include over 100 activity sheets. Each month includes a list of 10 picture books for daily reading, phonics and other basic skills instructions, "ABC Marching Band Letters" for learning letter-sound connections, reading links to holidays and special events, reading links to writing, math, social studies, science & health, author-of-the-month studies and activities, plus 10-13 illustrated reproducible activities.
Table of Contents:
About the Book. Learning to Read with Ann. Print is Everywhere. Setting Up an Inviting Cozy Reading Area. Basic Skills Program, Whole Language Approach, and the Phonics Debate. A Visual-Verbal Relationship. A Reading Portfolio.That's ""poster"" with a ""p"" (letter). SEPTEMBER. Children's picture books for the month of September. September's focus on reading. Awareness of alphabet letters. Alphabet on parade (visual awareness).Alphabet song activities (auditory awareness). Letters are ""touchy"" (kinesthetic awareness). Sewing shop (kinesthetic awareness). Letter-- sound relationships. Calling all first names! (phonics). Listen for beginning letter-- sound patterns (phonics). More beginning sounds (phonics). Can you name the letter? (phonics). Constructing big letters. We've got some name envelopes. Let's get acquainted-- name envelope activities. Those puzzling ABC's. Clay is cool-- making ""dog tags"". Snacking with carrot-stick letters. The ABC marching band letters of the month-- M, S, R, T, B, and L. Introduction to the ABC marching band. Focusing attention on September's letters. Meet Manny Mouse and his Marimba (letter M). Three things that start with ""M"" (letter M). The letter head sweat bands. Meet Sally Squirrel and the saxophone (letter S). Silly sentences with Sally (letter S). Meet Rusty and the Rhapsodia (letter R). Real items that have the letter ""R"" sound (letter R). It's a Red-Letter Day (letter R). Meet Tootsie Turtle and the trumpet (letter T). Meet Barry Bear and the Bugle (letter B). Language Tongue Twister (letter B). Meet Lyle Lion and the Lyre (letter L). Let's hum along! (letter L). Singing La-La-La with Lyle (letter L). Our voice is an instrument (letter L). More skill-building activities for letters M, S, R, T, B, and L. Make an individual letter poster (M, S, R, T, B, L). Let's begin to build the ""shopping for letters"" routine. Unpack the shopping basket (M, S, R, T, B, L). Hunting through the house for letters (M, S, R, T, B, L). Yummy-- let's snack with the letter (M, S, R, T, B, L). The bakery shop (M, S, R, T, B, L). Letter shapes look yummy to teddy bears (M, S, R, T, B, L). Teddies like storybooks (M, S, R, T, B, L). Sing along with the focus letters (M, S, R, T, B, L). Sing along with the ABC marching band letters (M, S, R, T, B, L). Band music (M, S, R, T, B, L). Roll a ball in time to the music (M, S, R, T, B, L). Listen to music stories (M, S, R, T, B, L). Reading link to holidays special events. Going to school is a special event (language development). The ""practice line-up for getting to the door"" as a special event. Hail, hail the gang's all here! We're a winning team!. Next, we need a logo (reading symbols). Logo detectives at work. Write an experience chart story about the class. Extra! Extra! We wrote a story!. What a photogenic group. School photos. It's Grandparents' day!. A placemat at grandparents' table. Grandparents like storybooks. Labor Day is a special September holiday (dictionary skills). Two Jewish holidays-- Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur. Celebrate National Pancake Day. Pancake paper-bag puppet. Reading links to writing. Set up a writing center. The jolly postman can be in charge of the writing center. Let's make lists. We can make circles and sticks. Let's give our hands a workout. Sorting letters. Portfolio-- I can print my name. It's time to print. Letter condominiums-- Where do letters live?. Reading links to math. Math picture books for story time. Circles, triangles, squares, and rectangles. Play a math shape guessing game. Making sense of the calendar. Is it ""Today"" now?. Let's read numerals. Let's write numerals. We can read numerals names. Who's in charge of the math center?. Organizing a math center. Reading links to social studies. We're one big happy school family. Meet my family. Picture books about the family. Helper's chart-- Read what you're doing. What can I do to help at school?. Forming friendships. A social studies center. Reading links to science health. The September science center. Who's in charge of the science center?. Realia (real) items for the science center. Healthy snacks. Caterpillars and butterflies. Reminder: Help your body to stay healthy. Links to author-of-the-month. Author/illustrator for September: Eric Carle. Activities to accompany Walter the Baker. Activities to accompany From Head to Toe. Activities to accompany Today is Monday . Activities to accompany Draw Me a Star . Activities to accompany Have You Seen My Cat?. Activities to accompany Papa, Please Get the Moon for Me. And many more!.Reproducible Activity Pages. Marching Band-- Letter M-- Manny Mouse. Marching Band-- Letter S-- Sally Squirrel. Marching Band-- Letter R-- Rusty Rabbit. Marching Band-- Letter T-- Tootsie Turtle. Marching Band-- Letter B-- Barry Bear. Marching Band-- Letter L-- Lyle Lion. Word house chart. Schoolhouse I.D. Environmental Print. Getting ready to write. I can print my name (portfolio record sheet). Children's literature activity page-- The Caterpillar is Hungry for Information (Eric Carle). OCTOBER. NOVEMBER. DECEMBER. JANUARY. FEBRUARY. MARCH. APRIL. MAY and JUNE.
About the Author :
Elizabeth Crosby Stull, Ph.D. has over 30 years of experience in education as a primary teacher and teacher educator. Dr. Stull has published many articles in professional journals and has written six titles for The Center on early childhood and elementary education, including the Kindergarten Teacher's Month-by-Month Activities Program (The Center, 1987,) which she co-authored with Carol Lewis Price. She lives in Worthington, OH.
