Classroom Activities™ (Teacher)

Kindergarten

Here's an idea for using the Literature Works Readable, How to Get to Harry's House.

Children innovate on the pattern in the Readable How to Get to Harry's House to publish a class book about their own neighborhoods.

• Discuss with children places that are located in their own neighborhoods. Possible responses might include park, fruit stand, post office, and police station.

• Ask them to think of different places a person could pass on the way to their home.

• Tell children that you are going to create a class book that shows the places they would pass to get to their own homes.

• Click here for a page to print out. Distribute two copies of the page to each child.

• Have children draw and label (in the pattern of the Readable: Pass the ___________________.) two locations that someone might pass on the way to their home.

• Let children help bind their work to create a class book. You may wish to brainstorm a beginning for the book, for example, To get to our homes you have to pass many places. (first contribution would read Pass the post office (child's contribution) and so on.

• Invite volunteers to create a title and to illustrate a cover for the book.

• Children might enjoy taking turns bringing the book home to share with their families.

Learn more about the Literature Works Readable, How to Get to Harry's House. © Simon & Schuster

Grade 2

Here's an idea for using the Literature Works Grade 2 Practice Book.

In the Discovery theme, children learn about dinosaurs. In this activity, children tell what some silly dinosaurs are doing as they complete a phonics word study with the vowel pari au/aw.

Minilesson

To introduce au and aw, you may wish to go through a procedure such as the following:

• Write words claws and cause on the chalkboard.

• Ask children to identify the sounds the two words have in common. (/o/)

• Help children conclude that the aw in claws and the au in cause make the same sound.

• Tell children to listen for the /o/ sounds as you read the following words: draw, taught, teach, straws, see and caught.

• Ask them to raise their hands when they hear a word with the /o/ sound and to keep their hands down when they hear a word with a different sound.

Dinosaur Drawing Activity

• Tell children that they will use words with au and aw to describe the actions of some silly dinosaurs.

• Click here to print out the Dinosaur Drawing activity sheet. Distribute copies to students.

• You may want to provide children with additional paper to draw their dinosaur and write a caption that uses an au or aw word from the box.

• Display student work on a class bulletin board.

Learn more about the Literature Works Practice Books. © Simon & Schuster