February Oral Language Activities

Here are the February activities to promote oral language and early literacy skills.  How many can you and your child complete this month?

A tip for each day!	√
It's a new month...clap out its syllables.../Feb//ru//ar//y/.
What is a Meteorologist?  Watch the 6 o'clock news.
Sing a song about numbers. (e.g., "Five Little Monkeys")
Talk about nutritious snacks...go and find one in the fridge.
Say these words...sit, pot and hat.  What's the last sound you hear?
Mealtime conversation...Talk about what you did after school.
Show me a grumpy face.  What does it mean?
Let's bake!  Find and follow a recipe.
Practice the rules of conversation.  e.g., "My turn to talk -- your turn to listen."
Name three things you can open.
Listen to the word, /up/..is it a long word or a short word?  Name some short words.
The dentists sas you need to take better care of your teeth.  What things do you need to do?
Use and explain vocabulary wow words..."Mommy is exhausted", that means she's very tired.
Say "mailbox".  Say it again but don't say box.
The sounds in this word are /s/ /t/ /ar/.  Can you guess the word?
What fruits sound like these silly words:  cananan...perry...zapple?
Play a board game.  Talk about all the things you need before you begin.
Name words that thyme with /oat/.
How do you know when you're sick?  What helps you feel better?
Teach problem solving skills...I can only find one mitten, what should I do?
It's time to set the table, what do you need?
Look in a magazine, find a picture and tell a story about it.
Practice following detailed instructions.  (e.g., "Put your shoes on, zip up your coat and open the door."
Let's talk about chocolate.  Go and eat some!
Use the telephone.  Call someone in your family.
Name three animals that live in the cold.
Count the words in this sentence.  "It is snowing."

Provided by: The Speech and Language Services Department of 

                      the Greater Essex County District School Board

On the Hunt!

To celebrate all the great learning over the past two weeks, we decided to decorate our own gingerbread men.  But when we returned from lunch, ready to decorate, we discovered our gingerbread cookies were missing!  A quick search of our classroom...

...and all we found was a paper gingerbread man with a clue on it.

The students worked together to read the clue...

The first clue led us up the library...

Throughout our hunt, the students displayed great teamwork, working together to read and solve each clue.

Our hunt led us all over the school.  Our next stop was...

 ...the office!  Miss Chase was kind enough to let us look around.

We found another clue on Mr. Callow's door.  

Next, we were off to the lunchroom.  This was the toughest clue of all to find...

But we found it!!

Miss Chris helped us along the way as well!

After a great adventure, the clues led us back to Room 104 - our home, sweet home!

And there they were...waiting for us!

We set to work decorating our gingerbread men, women, cats and dogs...

Here are some of the finished products...

And just like in the story -- the Gingerbread Man was eaten up -- Snip, Snap!

Gingerbread Retell

The students were so enthusiastic about reading The Gingerbread Man last week, we continued investigating various versions this week.  Another activity the students enjoyed was retelling the story.  Once again, we used a story telling kit, but this time the students decided to work in groups.  Each group met together and planned their retell.  Once all the planning and practicing was done, each group presented their retell to the class.


It was great to see the collaboration and team work displayed.  We enjoyed hearing all the different retells of the The Gingerbread Man.  Some of the students are really beginning to task risks during our drama and oral language activities.  They are beginning to use much more expression, and many even changed the sound of their voice to speak in role as their chosen character.  It was exciting to watch!

Graph It!

Our newest unit in Math is a hit!!  We have been learning about graphing and how to display data.  Today, the students were presented with a pile of classroom supplies.

After trying to make observations from the confusing pile, one student observed:

"Maybe it will be easier if we sort it!"

Some volunteers made short work of that confusing jumble...

Next, the students decided to make a graph of the school supplies.  We used our graphing mat.  Again some eager volunteers got to work...

Everyone was so eager to help, we ended up sorting and graphing many different groups of school supplies.

After each graph was completed, the students discussed what they saw and interpreted the information on the graph.  Here are some ideas they shared:

• "There are more pencils than glue sticks."
• "There are more markers than anything else!"
• "The glue sticks have the smallest number."
• "We have more scissors than pencils."
• "The makers win!  Look how high they go!"
• "There are two more pencils than glue sticks."

The students wanted to do even more graphing.  We changed gears, and decided to gather information from each other to complete two different graphs.  First, the students surveyed each other and recorded if their friends had less than 5 letters, 5 letters or more than 5 letters in their name.  Next, they chose three colours and surveyed their classmates to see which of the three colours was liked the most, and the least.


It was so exciting to see and hear the students so excited about Math!  The room was abuzz!  Take a peek at mathematical investigation in process...

Before, during and after the graphs were constructed, the students were engaged in meaningful, mathematical dialogue.  While working together and talking to each other, the students were clarifying their understanding, helping each other and connecting personally to the mathematical concept of graphing.

Ask your child to share some their results with you. Perhaps you could ask them to show you how to sort and create a graph of various household objects.  Encourage your child to record and discuss the results with you (we would love to see them too).  Happy graphing!