“My children are home for the next few weeks!?”
My children are being sent home for the next few weeks because of the Coronavirus. Now what do I do?
These are many of the questions I’m sure you and other parents are asking right now. I am certain that teachers in your school are getting things ready for your children to do during their stay at home. We just wanted to offer you some great ways to keep your children, or if you are a teacher, your students engaged in literacy. We have created a daily routine called Daily Concept Builders that integrates vocabulary as well as science and social studies.
Daily Concept Builders
Daily Concept Builders is divided into 6 teaching resources.
- There is a vocabulary calendar that is divided into monthly themes, with cut and paste student calendars that reinforce the vocabulary.
- There are thematic emergent interactive readers with real photos of the vocabulary words, and comprehension check at the end.
- Cut and paste sheets with calendar vocabulary and sight word vocabulary.
- Sight word center with the same sight words that are in the cut and paste, with movable pieces
- A word game called Brain Bounce that asks questions about the vocabulary words.
- Vocabulary Memory with real photos that can be played 3 ways
As a teacher, I found that my students really learned this vocabulary because of all the practice Daily Concept Builders gave them. Now, you may be saying,”But I’m not a teacher. How do I teach my children while they are at home during this Coronavirus Quarantine or anytime they need extra work?” Each resource comes with a teaching guide, PLUS we’ve offered some more in-depth information below. We have Daily Concept Builders for every month of the year!
Monthly Vocabulary Calendar and Writing
Each day, show your student the calendar piece with the word for the day. Each calendar piece has a word that builds on a theme for the week. For instance, the first theme in March is story elements, so one of the calendar words is character. Sometimes it is fun to let your student sound out the word and see if they can figure it out. Talk about the meaning of the word and clap the number of syllables in the words. Character has 3 syllables.
I encouraged my students to write about the word in a notebook. They also drew a picture of their characters on construction paper, but you could just let your children draw the pictures in their notebooks. I have discovered that these calendar words give my students great confidence in their writing. Check out more writing samples and a video on how I taught these words by clicking here.
Check out all the calendars HERE.
Cut and Paste
These sheets are great for reinforcing the vocabulary from the calendars, and there is a sheet for each word. We have also included a sight word that I taught each day. Children cut out 6 words and glue them in correct order to create a sentence and write the sentence. Then they can draw a picture. We have included a bonus question at the bottom of each cut and paste sheet that encourages critical thinking. I have also used them for writings for class books.
This is a sample of our January Cut and Paste Sheets.
Check out all Cut and Paste HERE!
Emergent Readers
These are books that have real photos of the vocabulary words. The kids loved seeing the real photos and they helped them to match the pictures to the words. I always told my students.”The picture matches the words.” The fun part about these books is that the words can also be sung to a simple and familiar tune such as,”Mary Had a Little Lamb.” We have also included a single sheet with the words that can be highlighted or circled. The pictures have an empty box where I like to have students practice a phonetic feature in the word or you can have them write the definition of the word or just draw a picture. There is a teacher guide with ideas on how to use those boxes. The books come in color and in black and white. Grab our free emergent reader that teaches students about reading. They will have fun singing about letters, words, vowels and more!
Get all of our Emergent Readers Here.
We have started converting our emergent readers into Boom Cards which are digital so they are great for Distance Learning and the kids love them! Read about them here and grab a free Boom reader!
Sight Word Centers
The kids love these fun sight word centers! They are cards with the sight words from our cut and paste sheets. There are thematic pieces with letters for them to build their sight words that are printed on the cards. I put 5 cards with the letters that they needed to build those sight words in a baggie so they just created 5 words at a time. They also used the letters to make their own words. I gave them a white board with dry erase markers to write their words. They loved writing with markers.
See all of our sight word centers HERE.
Memory Vocabulary Game
The great thing about this memory vocabulary game is the real photos, and that it can be played 3 different ways. The children can match picture to picture, picture to word or I like to have my students match word to word when they are ready. As I mentioned before, the photos are the same from the emergent readers so the kids get excited when they see the same pictures. They make great centers at school as well.
Brain Bounce Vocabulary Game
The last teaching resource I wanted to share with you is our Brain Bounce Game. I did it as a culminating activity. The cards are questions about all the words we studied for the month. Now, I know you can’t have a class game like we did, however, you could divide the family into 2 teams. I would suggest taping the cards around your house, so that it gets your children up and moving, especially if they are quarantined in the house and they need to move! Try turning it into a game by timing how long it takes to record all the answers. They can write their answers on the recording sheet that is included in the packet. Another thing I liked to do was divide the cards into the themes and use the cards to review the words each week and then we played the game as a review of the whole month.
Purchase Brain Bounce Games Here.
We have Daily Concept Builders for every month! Check them out here.
More Ideas:
I tried to incorporate fun projects that went with our weekly theme. For instance, when we worked on vocabulary about behavior, we learned the “Quality Student Song.” Get it for free in our TPT store! You can also see the quality students that we made here.
When we worked on community helpers, we did these activities here.
When we worked on the St. Patrick’s Day vocabulary, we made leprechaun traps. You can see our pictures here.
When we worked on science vocabulary, we did STEM. Check that out here and grab a free STEM sheet!
When we worked on plant vocabulary, we created these sunflower pictures, and wrote about the parts and needs of the plants. See the directions here and grab a free plant song.
These are just a few ideas that we hope will help you during this distance learning time!
Please email us with any questions you have or let us know how we can help you engage your children.
Please share ideas that you have that would be helpful and share this post with any teachers or parents that it could help!
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All of our Best!
Brittany and Pam
