Lucinda's Library Notes

F is a favourite letter featured after E Footloose and Fancy free, F is followed up by G   How many F sounds can you see? Focus your eyes and find them with me! This is my introduction to the letter 'F' in rhyme.  😃 Firetrucks and Firefighters! This one is in honour of my son who is almost done his firefighting training!  We got some really cute fire rescue related stickers online for an activity but you can also just play.  Do you see a firetruck?  A hydrant? The colour red?   Sing along to the  "Hurry, Hurry, Drive the Firetruck" song:  As you sing each verse of the song. add the parts (ladder, hose, siren, wheels) onto the firetruck cut-out or onto the drawing of a firetruck.  Another song featuring /f/ is "Five Green and Speckled Frogs" and another is the theme song to "Frozen." Create 25 Firefighter /F/ flashcards:   The firefighter makes the cards extra cool. Practice words like: five, fire, four, family, frog, fan, flo...

  High frequency words, fluency, word families, fun, f igures of speech, follow-up questions,  fairytales, fantasy fiction, fables, folklore, free verse, feature stories....the possible topics for coverage this week are plentiful. The first four are my favourites for today. High Frequency Words :  These are important because if a child can learn to read these words, then they will have successes on every page as they learn to read which will serve to encourage them to persevere in the effort.  Sitton, Fry and Dolch are popular producers of these word lists.  They are typically practiced in list format.  Games like "Popcorn" have you pull them out and read them as part of the game. Bingo has you find the words on their page as you call them out. Another good method is to make two sets of flashcards that can be used in a matching game or a "Go Fish" game. Find the items that are on your list. There are many methods for practicing. Personally I also like to pu...

Wrong information sometimes creeps into our day and steals our courage or our belief in our ability to do something.  That is what happened to Elephant who read in his book that elephants cannot dance!  When invited by Piggie to learn some dance moves, he does not even want to try.  He was discouraged even before he started!  So often our children experience this in their lives and we need to be their encouragers and cheerleaders just as Piggie was for Elephant.   See E is for Exclamations in speech and encouragement from May 20th's blog for more on how to encourage others.  This subject is also part of what I wanted to convey when I mentioned the ANTs (automatic negative thoughts).  One of the ants is the "I CAN'T" ant.  It is just one of those beliefs that pops into our mind and we need to change the conversation as Piggie did when she commented that the book did not say elephants cannot TRY to dance.  We need to be willing to try and ...

E ngagement and Expression -  Just a reminder that our goal is to have children engaged in life...actively participating in play, in a growth mindset, in friendships, in   learning and in building literacy skills too.  We want to help children to express   themselves through all forms of communication be it words, writings, hand gestures, facial expressions, even cries.  We also want to encourage expression through song, dance, physical movement, drama, music and art.  Our goal is that they are able to express who they are as individuals with clarity and confidence and to be active   participants in the world around them. L istening Skills -  Here I am just going to list some great elephant based books to   listen to.  Horton Hears a Who (Suess),  Elephants Cannot Dance (Willem), Elmer (David), Are you there little elephant? (Taplin), Elephants (Hurt), Babar (de Brunhoff).  A book that is also a song is One Elephant went out to...

 An introductory list of how to encourage young readers and writers is at your fingertips!  For some, the process is smooth and almost innate but for others it is an uphill battle filled with many moments of discouragement and defeat.  We need to be encouragers and cheerleaders in the lives of children.  E is for Exclamations....words spoken with emphasis....and my hope is that we work hard to ensure our exclamations are encouraging words.  Are we reacting in frustration and exasperation or are we seeking to help these children endure the difficulties and be enthusiastic about their efforts to learn? Today I want to provide ten examples of E word exclamations to encourage a child to get you started. You sure are eager to get that done! I like your enthusiasm! You definitely put a lot of effort into that!  Well done! What an epic story you are writing!  It is exceptional! Your drawing is very elaborate!  I like the details you added.(or...I like th...

  RAWR! ROAR! RRRR! GROWL! RAWR! Great for working on the /R/ sound! Take the noisy room and turn it all into dinosaur conversation!  Start off high energy with stomping dinosaur feet and waving tails and big animated roars then slow down to less active and quieter dinosaur demonstrations.  Ask which dinosaur they are pretending to be.  Ask them what colour they are, if they have spikes or a long neck. Ask what they like to eat. Try to find suitable food in the room. Ask them if they can draw their dinosaur.  Find out what they named it. Write it down. Make a poster or banner to introduce others to their dinosaur.  Have them have a tea party or have the children build a dinosaur habitat with lego or blocks or cardboard and paint. Follow their interests and play. Ok, so perhaps we want to skip the noisy part but it is a meaningful way to engage the children and the activities are beneficial to entice children to participate in ways that build up skills acros...

https://photos.app.goo.gl/nj3a6rYG7Hj4aFb56   For the one month anniversary of starting my blog, I thought I would share a video to introduce myself and my purpose and plan.  Not perfection but hopefully helpful!  

  D is for Dinosaurs!  When I create my ideas lists, I am largely just writing out the suggestions as they come then organizing them a bit.  I haven't included links because they change over time and are generally equally available for you to find once you know what you want to look for (ie. a specific book or science experiment). However, if you need help visualizing an idea you think will benefit a child in your world, just ask and I will help you out. Speech Based Activities :  Name the dinosaurs from A to Z to create a great list and practice both ABCs and alphabetical order. Discuss the similarities and differences between the species. Categorize them, for example separate plant eaters and meat eaters or large and small dinosaurs. You can use a Venn diagram to do this too. Read books featuring dinosaurs such as The Dinosaur who Lost his Roar, Magic Tree House:  Dinosaurs before Dark, Rawr, various dinoosaur encyclopedias and so forth.  Examine their ...

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 People are familiar with the incessant "Whys?" of young children.  While they can test your patience, they are a sign of interest and growing level of knowledge.  Storytellers find there is a comparative experience with some of their audience members who repeatedly ask, "What is that?"  Consider this scenario.

T he parent (uppercase) letters are all looking for their little ones (lowercase letters) in this imaginative tale of letters who all climbed up a coconut tree and subsequently fell out.   The anthropomorphized letters are poetically and descriptively portrayed characters in this popular children's book written by Bill Martin Jr and John Archambault and illustrated by Lois Ehlert. Chicka Chicka Boom Boom makes for a great chant.  It can be read with a lot of attitude and made into quite a fun and interactive text that is beneficial for use in a variety of literacy activities in the areas of reading, writing, speaking and listening. 1. Read the book . Read it again in a different voice.  Read it again in yet another voice. Try a booming voice, a squeaky voice, an educator's voice, a worried voice and so on. Have fun!  Be animated! Keep the rhythm of the text. Match your inflections to the words.  Go up when there are are questions and intensify when their is bold...

C is for Cars.   Let's begin with car songs, rhymes and books, even movies.  Take the main characters and create fun activities.  For example, make a Lightning McQueen cut-out on a stick along with cut-outs of other friends and retell the story or make up your own stories.  Practice key phrases.  Learn the words to a car song.  Fill in the blank to words in a rhyme.  Supplement a variety of literacy based activities with a number of other activities on the same theme which is of interest to the child.  In this way, reading, writing, listening and speaking skills will develop in the context of play! Song:  The car's in the garage (tune is the farmer in the dell)  Repeat for each child in the group.                     The car's in the garagex2, honk honk, beep, beep, the car's in the garage.                        ...

🌟  We are generally familiar with the grammar rules for capitalization but we must also remember to capitalize on every opportunity we have to build literacy skills!  Both subjects are valuable. The general rules for capitalization in English writing. *Sentences start with capitals and end with periods. *Names are proper nouns which are capitalized. Names of individuals, cities, countries, companies, religions, languages and political parties should be capitalized as well as days, months and holidays (but not seasons).   *Time periods and major events (eg. WW2) are usually capitalized as well as most words in titles (eg. Little Red Riding Hood).   The word 'I' is always capitalized because it represents YOU.  You are of great value. We all are valued and our focus therefore is on people!  While that is not the reason WHY we use a capital ('I' is a proper noun), it is still valid and leads me to the concept of capitalization as a phrasal verb....

This is a new book to me.  As I listen to the author share the story for the first time, I will share some of the ideas that come to mind on how to use it to teach reading, writing, listening and speaking skills and to support that goal through the suggestion of other ideas connected to the book. Theme :  The title tells us there are three main topics to build on with this book: counting, magic and butterflies.   Cover:   The bright colours on the cover suggest we should supplement the story with art: bold butterflies? fancy fairies? colourful flowers? sparkly magic wands?       Main characters:  Ten flower friends....let's count them from 1-10 (math). Wait, it is also noticeable that the flowers are different colours, let's name the colours too.  Story Prediction : "Were they always happy?" What do you think? Can you guess what would make the flower characters either happy or sad?  Questions and Answers from the text:   "What ...

🦋Today I want to work on the /b/ sound.  I am going to show my brainstorm for activities related to the topic: B is for butterfly.  There will be kinesthetic and sensory suggestions to add in along with the usual visual (reading and writing) and auditory (listening and speaking) ideas.  Please add in your favourites in the comments section! Phonics :  B is for butterfly.  buh, buh, butterfly.  What else begins with B?  Beautiful bugs in books! Baseball bats and balls!  Baby blue belugas! Brown Bear's bamboo box!  Babysitter's burst bubble! Baboon's banana breakfast!  Big Bird's barbeque by the Babbling brook! and  Ben's broken bicycle! Songs :  If I were a butterfly,  Butterfly, Butterfly (life cycle), and the Butterfly Colours Song Books :  Ten Magic Butterflies (Library Notes coming Tuesday!), The very hungry Caterpillar (Carle), My, Oh My, a Butterfly (Rabe/Seuss), Pinkalicious and the little butterfly. and A Butt...