Tips for Traveling with Tots

Click here to read this book.

Here are some thoughts as we approach the busiest travel day of the year!!

While I acknowledge that all the fun electronic stuff can be life-savers at times, please remember that there are many great ways to engage young children during those special times you share en route that will also boost their learning and thinking skills as well as nurture closer bonds.

Planes, Trains, . . .

Air travel can be challenging for anyone these days and more so with the little ones along. Be prepared!

* Pack a bag for your child with lots of goodies. Include snacks--healthy treats as well as a few of your child's favorite ones to pull out when needed as a diversion. Bring sippy cups and continually fill them with water or juice.

* Bring books--and lots of them! Bring books that your child can read on his/her own as well as some new read-alouds. Bring a few activity books with crosswords and other puzzles, as well as self-contained craft kits, card games, paper and crayons. Bringing a travel journal is also a lovely idea.

* Bring a few toys, including a favorite "huggable," as well as a few small new toys. Wrap every new item like a little present. The act of opening them will take time and enhance small motor skills.

. . . and Automobiles

Car trips can be a little easier on little ones, since you can stop frenquently and let them run around a bit. Along with the items listed above, books on tape are a wonderful activity for kids in the car. Listen along as well, so you can discuss the story and encourage your child to make predictions on what will happen next. When a child listens to a story, they have to create a picture in their mind of what is going on. This is a powerful way to build comprehension skills. That's why you should intersperse movie watching with books on tape when you're on the road. I also highly recommend music videos and CD's. Music accesses and stimulates different parts of the brain. 

For lots and lots of more great ideas, car tips, and travel games, check out www.MomsMinivan.com.

Ideas to Get Kids Writing

Need a writing idea? Just look around you!

When I visit classrooms and talk to kids about their writing,

I always tell them, "Look around you. No one sees the world just like you do!"

Encourage children to think of as many different writing topics as possible. Below is a reproducible that they can use to record their thoughts and ideas. Have students put the lists of ideas in their writing folders or notebooks to have access to ideas whenever they run dry, like the poor chap in the cartoon above!

Click image to download

this reproducible.

For more ideas for writing, click on this link to one of my previous postings:

Becoming an independent writer. . .

Make This Class Book!

My friend, Barbara Maio, helped her students create a class Big Book

based on the text of my book, Who Can Go to School?

Click here to read!

Who Can Go to School?

First, the students brainstormed a long list of things children can do at school and at home too. The list included classroom jobs and learning activities. Then each child created two pages for the class book.    

Other pages included these innovations to the text of the book above:

Can a giraffe play at recess?

No, but Josue can play at recess.

Can an elephant pass out paper?

No, but Max can pass out paper.

Can a hippo write in a journal?

No, but Kaila can write in a journal.

Bookmaking with K-1 Kids, Part 3 * Practice reading the books before sending them home.

Never send student-made books home unless children can read them with 99% accuracy. Here are some ways to practice reading the text:

* Place the little books in students' book boxes for independent reading time.

* Pocket chart or Smart Board Activities

* Create a Big Book version for shared reading.

*Buddy reading

* Record the stories for a listening center.

Here's my version of that iconic 1st grade story, "The Little Red Hen." Make sure you check out an acompanying book-making activity with free down-loadables. Also fits well with the tale, "Stone Soup."

Click Here to Read!

Little Red Hen Makes Soup

Hints: Staple a snack size zip-loc bag to the book cover. Add the manipulative pieces along with a plastic soup with a small stone glued inside it. The spoon can be used as a reading pointer and to "stir up" the ingredients as they are added to the "pot."

Click image to download this reproducible.

This book-making activity is from by resource book below, check it out on the Amazon link!

Amazon link

Where to Get Appropriate Text for K-1 Bookmaking

* Innovations of shared reading material.
* Reproducible emergent readers from resource books
*Traditional poems, songs, rhymes, and chants
* Adaptations of emergent readers
* Download free books from the internet.

For your book-making pleasure, here is a great idea for a class book based on my book below, What Goes Together?

 

Click here to read

What goes together?

June Swinney, a 1st grade teacher, made this class book with her students. First she read aloud several books with the theme of catagories or things that go together. Then the class brainstormed a long long list of paired objects. From that list they created rhyming couplets. Pairs of students created and illustrated each page of the class Big Book. Adorable!

When is a Good Time to Make Books with K-1 Kids?

When is a Good Time

to Make Books

with K-1 Kids?  

Finding time to make books with your beginning readers can be a challenge.

Here are some good times to keep in mind:

•  As a learning center activity
•  Homework
• When parent volunteers are available (Coordinate this with center time.)
•  Time with upper grade buddies

If you have other suggestions for how to find time for book-making,

please let me know and I"ll post your ideas!

Here is one of my favorite Cat and Dog books,

with a cool book-making activity that you can download for free. This fun book fits with a social studies theme of "needs vs. wants."

Click here to read!

Good Choices for Cat and Dog

Book Making!

                                            

Click the images above to download!

                    

Why Make Books with K-1 Kids?

Here some great reasons to use valuable school time making books:

• Supply extra reading at school. Beginning readers needs lots and lots of easy to read books to practice reading and rereading.
• Integrate reading in the content areas. There are many book-making resources that feature science, social studies, and math themes.
• Practice reading sight words in context.
• Create a supply of reading material for home. After spending some time in the students' book boxes at school, you can send the books home for extra practice. Many K-1 teachers make a home book box at Back to School night and emphasize that the books sent home be placed in the box for home reading.
• Extend reading practice beyond the school day and through summer vacation. This is a great way to avoid "summer fall-out!"

Below, you can download a fun book-making activity that goes with this Itty Bitty Phonics Reader.

Click here to read the book about bear



What Is in Bear's Box?

You can copy the bear shape on colored card stock and stick on wiggly eyes, bows, hat, etc. This book practices initial consonant /b/. You can invite your child to glue items to each page such as a button, bow, bean, etc.

 

Click image to download

this reproducible.

My next blog: When is a good time to make books?