Teachnet Grant Literacy Lessons for Little Learners Makes "Sense" Nora Flanagan Weekly Lesson Plans Although these lessons cover only some aspects of my balanced literacy approach, they provide a sequential learning  framework for teachers to follow each week to help students learn an alphabet letter, its sound and a related sight word. These weekly plans will be completed for each letter of the alphabet. Overall Objectives: • Reinforce and/or enrich student literacy skills, including reading, phonics, listening, and writing, that relate to our district’s benchmarks. • Identify and reinforce letter names, sounds and basic sight words • Read a patterned text with increasing fluency. • Introduce students to several aspects of technology, including digital cameras, the computer keyboard, educational software and the capabilities of the internet. • Create a positive attitude within students toward reading, writing and technology. • Inform parents about literacy activities so curriculum can be reviewed and reinforced at home. • Learn about the characteristics and habitats of various animals. Monday Materials: • Digital camera • Alphabet flash cards • Sight word card • Poem featuring focus letter and/or word (in pocket chart) • Pictures and “sound can”, including items that begin with the focus initial sound Procedure: • Introduce alphabet letter and its sound. Show pictures and/or real objects in “sound can” that begin with this letter. • Introduce the word. Have children join in a word chant, spelling the word while pointing to the letters. • Read the poem, emphasizing the letter, sound and sight word. • Go on a scavenger hunt in the classroom and through the school halls, looking for objects beginning with the sound. Take a digital photo of these objects. Tuesday Materials: • Pictures from scavenger hunt • Alphabet flash cards • Sight word card • Poem featuring focus letter and/or word (in pocket chart) • Wikki sticks • Digital camera • My First Incredible, Amazing Dictionary software • Internet alphabet practice site Procedure: • Review letter names, sight word and some words that begin with the letter sound. • Use wikki sticks to frame the focus letter in the pocket chart poem. Do the same with the sight word. Also, look for previous words that children know. • Allow students to glue the pictures from the scavenger hunt to chart paper. Label the pictures, allowing children to take turns writing the initial letter. • During centers, children work on Incredible, Amazing Dictionary. They locate the letter and find three words that begin with it (listening to the word definition). Children may then practice alphabet skills at one of the internet sites. • While the students are working at centers, the teacher poses the children and takes a digital photo that can be used to create a short emergent reading book, featuring the focus sight word, with predictable text. (Teacher authors, prints and copies the emergent reading book that shows the children’s pictures and the focus sight word.) Wednesday Materials: • Chart of initial letter pictures and words • Copy of weekly poem and poetry journals • Show and Tell objects relating to letter • Teacher-created emergent reading book • Kid Pix software • Internet site Procedure: • Review pictures, letter and sound on chart. • Students share their Show and Tell object that begins with the focus letter. • Glue weekly poem into poetry journal. Read the poem. Highlight the focus letter and word. Review other concepts of print, including punctuation, use of capital letters, spaces between words and left to right progression. • Read teacher created emergent reading book, associating student names with other letters. Collect book to use tomorrow. • During centers, use Kid Pix software to stamp the focus letter and several picture stamps beginning with this letter. Print this out. Save page and put in each student’s cumulative alphabet book. When finished, students may proceed to an alphabet internet site for reinforcement of letters and sounds. Thursday Materials: • Chart of initial letter pictures and words • Poem in pocket chart; cut-up words to match to the poem • Teacher-created emergent reading book • Kid Works software Procedure: • Review chart. Add more words to the chart and have students illustrate. • Read poem. Pass out word cards and have students find the word in the poem and place it in the pocket chart. • Distribute emergent readers. Reread. Highlight the focus letter, focus word and other previously learned words. Send home books for further reading practice. • During center time, student types the focus word in Kid Works software. As the year progresses, students may write a phrase or a sentence containing the word. Friday Materials: • Chart • Poem • Food related to focus letter • Internet site depicting pictures/information about an animal whose name begins with the focus letter Procedure: • Review and reread chart and poem. • Prepare and eat a food that relates to the letter as we eat our way through the alphabet. • Do a search for sites featuring information about an animal beginning with the focus letter sound. • Send home a copy of the poem for reading practice with family. Overall Evaluation: Teachers will observe students informally, take anecdotal records, and use formal literacy assessments to evaluate student progress periodically.