Phonemic Awareness

For younger children, one of the first indications of future reading success is their ability to hear sounds and discriminate between them, this is called phonemic awareness. I know some kindergarten classes now have little mirrors to work on this skill. The children say certain words or letter sounds and notice how the position of their mouth and tongue change with each sound. The children are becoming more phonemically aware by doing this activity.
For example, the children would say the word b-a-t. The letter sounds would be segmented and the children would notice the position of their mouth and tongue would change with each segmented sound. Phonemic awareness is totally an oral activity. The children are not involved at this point in visually looking at letters that make these sounds. In the last few years the importance of phonemic awareness and its correlation to reading has been significant. If you teach kindergarten and preschool, phonemic awareness activities should be incorporated each day. The website below is an excellent resource for gaining a greater understanding of this.

http://reading.uoregon.edu/pa/pa_teach.php

The link below has great video clips of a child who experiences difficulty with phonemic awareness and one that has a good foundation:

http://reading.uoregon.edu/pa/pa_benchmarks_2.php

Click on the link below for more ideas that can be incorporated into Kindergarten and Preschool Activities:

Preschool and Kindergarten Activities

Plant Theme Lesson Plans and Activities

Recommended Book
The book that I would recommend to be the most valuable to use in conjunction with the Plant Theme would be "The Tiny Seed" by Eric Carle. His books have a remarkable way of telling a story that children love to hear and his ability to integrate learning concepts is outstanding. This story tells how a tiny seed traveled and escaped landing in an area where it couldn't grow. This book introduces the concept of how a seed requires certain growing conditions before becoming a plant and it does this in a fun and entertaining manner. Click on the title to read reviews.

Follow-up Craft Activity
Children can trace their foot on brown construction paper and cut it out. Facial features can be added to represent the tiny seed. The story could be acted out.

For more activity suggestions click on the link below:
Kindergarten and Preschool Activities

Plant Theme Lesson Plans and Activities

Informational Content Book
The book "From Seed to Plant" by Gail Gibbons is a very good book to use to introduce information on different seed types, parts of plants, how new plants are produced, how seeds travel, what a seed needs to grow and how to raise bean plants. Young children may find some of the concepts introduced somewhat difficult to understand but the pictures provide a very good explanation. This book could be broken down into sections depending on what concept you want the children to understand. Click on the title of the book for reviews on it.

More Plant Follow-up Activities

Plant Theme Activities and Lesson Plan Ideas

Plant Theme Lesson Plans and Activities

Focus on Trees
No Plant theme would be complete without discussing the importance of trees. Two books that I would recommend that nicely introduce the concept of the value of trees are:

1. The Giving Tree by Shel Silverstein

2. The Growing Up Tree by Rosenberry

Both books lend themselves to discussion on the importance of trees. Click on the titles to read the book reviews.

Art
This could be followed-up by doing leaf rubbings or making a friendship tree found in the link
below:

Friendship Tree

Computers
In the link below you will find "catch the seed game". The children must move the bucket to catch the seeds.

Computer Game

Plant Theme Lesson Plans and Activities

When teaching children about the different parts of a plant and how we use these for a food source, the book "Tops and Bottoms" by Janet Stevens would be a good book to read in conjunction with introducing this concept. The children will not only enjoy the story but the pictures offer a wonderful opportunity to look at a variety of vegetables and what parts of the plant we eat. Click on the title of the story for more information about the book.

For more related Plant theme activities click on the link below:

Plants theme activities and lesson plans

Bugs, Insects Activities and Lesson Plans

When it comes to books to use in conjunction with your Insect theme unit the Eric Carle books are an excellent choice. They all have facts about insects presented in a manner that delight young children. Not only do they present interesting facts but also incorporate other learning opportunities such as days of the week or counting. The books listed below are all excellent choices. Click on the titles to read the reviews about them. Press the back button to return back to this page.

1. The Very Quiet Cricket

2. The Very Clumsy Click Beetle

3. The Very Lonely Firefly

4. The well known and loved book The Very Hungry Caterpillar

Click on the link below for more activity suggestions to incorporate with the Bugs/Insects theme:

Kindergarten and Preschool Activities

Bugs, Insects Activities and Lesson Plans

Another good book to use in conjunction with the Bugs theme is The Grouchy Ladybug by Eric Carle. This is a delightful book with a repetitive story line that offers many learning opportunities. It teaches children about positve character virtures, manners, time, size, shapes and how animals defend themselves. Click on the title of the book to read the reviews on it.
Follow-up Activities
1. Discuss how each of the animals in the story tried to protect themselves.
2. Discuss how the size of the animals increased throughout the story.
3. Act out the story. Have a teaching clock displayed and have it change as the characters within the story change.
4. Gather more information about ladybugs.
5. Ladybug craft and math idea can be found in the link below:

Kindergarten and Preschool Activities