Thematic Units: Fire Safety and All About Me

The week of 10/13-10/17 we did a unit on Fire Safety as it was National Fire Safety and Prevention week. A firefighter came to the school and taught the children about fire safety and gave them a tour of his fire truck. Our literacy curriculum consisted of writing the letter 'F' and learning new vocabulary words that begin with 'F', playing a game called Alphabet Siren, matching uppercase to lowercase letters with our fire truck alphabet matching cards, and of course, reading a lot of great books related to fire safety! Alphabet Siren is a game I found online on Pinterest. I wrote letters A-Z on separate small fire truck templates and wrote the word 'siren' on one of the cards. Then I placed all of the cards in a brown bag. Children chose a letter from the bag and said the letter out loud and it's letter sound (if applicable). If a child draw the 'siren' card all of the children make the sound of a siren and get to skip a turn. The children enjoyed this game and when it was over asked me when we would play again! Although the purpose of this activity was for our fire safety week, I have continued to use it during transition periods or if we have some extra free time.



The following week children learned all about themselves in our All About Me unit. Each child created an All About Me book. Inside the book children created a self-portrait, described what they live in (e.g. house, apartment, condo) and their address, how old they are, their favorite food, favorite color, and much more! Children presented their books when they were finished and then brought them home. Some children were able to write some of the words to their story while others needed more help and guidance. We also practiced writing the letter 'H' and shared our letter 'H' bags. Children remembered how to write the letter 'H' by writing two big lines down and one little line across. I have noticed that some children are struggling to remember how to pronounce and write some of our letters from the following weeks so this upcoming week we will be doing a review on letters L, F, E, and H  

Handwriting Without Tears

    Children are already making progress with the Handwriting Without Tears program! I love that we get to spend a whole week on each letter. This has really helped children truly understand what they need to know about each letter. As you know, we started with the letter L. We introduced this letter by having children find an object that begins with the letter L to put inside their Alphabet Bag. Children came back with lots of good examples of objects that begin with L. Some of the objects included a lollipop, lego, licorice, ladybug, lamb, lantern, and much more! After sharing our items, children practiced saying /L/ sound. I read out word cards and had children decipher by the beginning sound of each word whether or not it began with the letter L. Children also went on scavenger hunt in the classroom to look for objects that begin with the letter L. I had to give them a couple hints but they came back with the right objects. :-)
    On Tuesday, our Tuesday/Thursday friends shared their letter bags. Then children began working on an exercise where they trace the upper case and lower case l and then circle the letter L in various words such as ladybug and lollipop. Children learned letter L by making a 'big line' down and 'small line' across. Children did need some extra guidance with this exercise. Luckily, I had a small enough class size to support their learning. On Wednesday, students who did not do the letter L exercise did at this time. Also, children began forming the letter using play dough to form the letter.
    During circle time on Thursday and Friday children came up two at a time to write the uppercase and lower case L. All children were able to write the letter. As a center I put out various alphabet letters where children were to look for the letter L. This week we are starting letter F! Coincidently we are also doing a theme on Fire Safety. :-)