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March 3, 2006
It's Read Across America Week!
Originally created as a one-day event to celebrate the joy of reading on March 2, Dr. Seuss's birthday, the National Education Association’s Read Across America has grown into a nationwide initiative that promotes reading every day of the year. In fact many – if not all – schools in our region celebrated Read Across America Day throughout this entire week. Motivating children to read is an important factor in student achievement and creating lifelong successful readers. Research has shown that children who are motivated and spend more time reading do better in school.
So, in honor of Dr. Seuss – or Ted Geisel – today we’re focusing on activities that you can do with your child to help them become better readers. What is the one easily identifiable trait of any Dr. Seuss book? Rhyming. Almost silly and nonsensical rhyming most of the time. Dr. Seuss wasn’t a crazy fella – actually he took the tool of rhyming and made it into a learning experience for young children. How many kids can actually recite all of “The Cat in the Hat” or “The Grinch Who Stole Christmas?” Not only have children learned the words – and sometimes songs – that go along with Dr. Seuss’s books, the children have also learned to develop their retention skills along the way.
The Cat in the Hat
Book Selection
Your Favorite Seuss : A Baker's Dozen by the One and Only Dr. Seuss
by Dr. Seuss
A Hatful of Seuss: Five Favorite Dr. Seuss Stories
by Dr. Seuss
March 10, 2006
Reading Rainbow – Creating Better Writers and Illustrators
Each year WQLN and the Northwest Tri County Intermediate Unit partner together to bring LeVar Burton’s Reading Rainbow Contest to Northwestern PA. Time is running out to enter your child into the contest, so today we’re going to focus on some basic writing activities to get your child ready to enter! At WQLN, we like to turn passive TV viewing into active TV viewing and we do that through something we call the Learning Triangle – where you (view) a TV program with your child, (do) an activity related to the show, and then (read) a book about the program you just watched. Reading Rainbow actually designs its shows each week around the learning triangle model. Here’s an example:
Gregory, the Terrible Eater (View on WQLN)
This is a spirited story about Gregory, a goat that is a very picky eater. He refuses to eat the usual goat diet and his parents become very worried. In the video LeVar explores how people as well as animals need a nutritionally balanced diet. Join him on a fun-filled trip to the San Diego Zoo, Billy and Nanny's Barnyard Café and visit with a famous New York chef.
(Do) Make a Puppet
You will need:
• Brown paper lunch sack
• Yarn and paper scraps
• Crayons and/or markers
Directions:
Using the brown paper bag as the puppet, have your child decorate the bottom of the sack as a character.
Decorate with recycled scraps of paper, yarn string, etc, to create just the personality your child would like.
(Read): Visit your community library and find these great books.
Goats by Jason Cooper
The Baby Zoo by Bruce McMillan
Potluck by Anne Shelby
Why not continue the learning from Reading Rainbow by entering your child in the 2006 Reading Rainbow Young Writers and Young Illustrators contest? Visit http://www.wqln.org/education/contests/ for details!
March 17, 2006
Saint Patrick’s Day
St. Patrick: The patron saint of Ireland and the Irish, was born about 385 A.D. in Northern Wales. He studied religion in Europe to become a priest and bishop. He then brought Christianity to the Irish by teaching in Ireland for 29 years. According to early Irish tradition, he died on March 17, 461 AD. The anniversary of his death is celebrated as Saint Patrick's Day. St. Patrick is most known around the world as driving all the snakes out of Ireland through trickery.
The symbol of shamrocks: An Irish tale tells of how Patrick used the three-leafed shamrock to explain the Trinity. He used it in his sermons to represent how the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit could all exist as separate elements of the same entity. His followers adopted the custom of wearing a shamrock on his feast day. Green is associated with Saint Patrick's Day because it is the color of spring, Ireland, and the shamrock.
Making a Leprechaun Trap
Suggested Grades: K-3
Objective:
Students will use their knowledge of force and motion to make working leprechaun traps.
Materials:
Method:
Book Selection
Jack and the Leprechaun
by Ivan Robertson, Katy Bratun (Illustrator)
March 24, 2006
What could it be?
Curriculum Idea:
Senses – We have five senses: sight, hearing, touch, smell, and taste. We can use different senses to learn different things. When one sense doesn’t work as well, we can use other senses. Investigating by using different senses is a good way to gather information and for “finding out.”
Related Episodes:
Five Senses, The Sloth Must be Crazy
Ages: 3-6
Subject: Life Science, Physiology
Skills:
Critical thinking, Investigative skills, Using five senses, Comparison, Language description
Materials:
Cloth to use as blindfold, various household objects for child to identify including things that they can smell, taste, touch and hear (such as: piece of fruit, cracker, lidded container with dry rice/pasta in it, rattle/bells, clean laundry, flower/plant, sandpaper, peeled hard-boiled egg, piece of Jell-O, wet bar of soap, soft and brushy strong smelling herbs like cilantro, piece of grass, frozen peas, whole clove of garlic, pumice stone, shells, silly putty, grapes with skin peeled off), towel to cover objects, paper, pen/pencil
Directions:
Before you begin this activity with your child, prepare the items that you are going to ask him to identify. (Be sure to select objects that are age-appropriate for your child and take into account any allergies.) Hide them beneath a towel so he cannot see them. Next, make a chart to track his observations about each object. For example:
Then, have your child sit near the objects and talk with him about the senses that he uses everyday. Most people can use their sense of sight, hearing, touch, smell, and taste to learn about things all around them. However, there are sometimes when we can’t use one of our senses, either temporarily or permanently. In those instances, we can use our other senses to tell us about things that are around us. For example, when it is dark, we may rely more on our sense of hearing or touch. If we get a head cold and temporarily lose our sense of smell, we may need to rely more on our sense of sight or taste while eating foods. Remind him that there are sometimes when it isn’t safe to use all of your senses to investigate an object. For example, there are many plants that are not safe to eat, and objects that could be very hot or cold are not safe to touch. Anytime that he is unsure of what something is or if it is safe, he should ask an adult.
Tell him that you are going to temporarily take away his sense of sight and ask him to use his other senses to identify objects. State that each of our senses functions in different ways and can tell us different things. By trying to use them one at a time, we can learn more about how they each work separately as well as how they work together. Put the blindfold on him and then take out the first object you have hidden. As you go through each object, ask him what he is observing from each of his senses. For example, how does this object smell, feel, sound, and taste (tell him that you will let him know if it is safe to use his sense of taste on each object). Ask the questions in a different order each time. You might put the first object into his hands and ask him how it feels before moving on to other senses. When you get to the next object, hold it in front of him so he can use his sense of smell first, or shake it so he using his sense of hearing first.
Keep track of your child’s observations on your chart. Remember to go through his senses in a different order each time. For example:
Talk About It: After your child experiences each object, cover the objects back up with the cloth, take the blindfold off, and discuss the way your child experienced Object #1. Talk about the description he gave based on each of his senses, and then ask him what he thinks the object was. Do this with each object. Ask questions such as, “How does the smell and the taste of the object go together? What kinds of things do you know that are crunchy like this one?” This will help reinforce your child’s discovery of each of our senses separately, as well as allowing him to think about how they might work together.
Take It Further: Stage a taste test for your child where you take away his sense of sight and of smell. Blindfold him and have him pinch his nose as you give him different things to taste, such as chocolate sauce (sweet), lemon juice (sour), soy sauce (salty), and black tea (bitter). Have him describe each taste. Then, with his nose unplugged, repeat the process and compare the difference in his observations. Talk about how our sense of smell and taste interact to help us enjoy delicious foods!
Different animals rely more on some senses than on others. For example, turtles have a very good sense of smell, but a poor sense of hearing. Bats have a very good sense of hearing and can hear sounds that we can’t. Help your child look in a book or online to learn about the different senses that his favorite animal relies on.
For other activities related to It’s a Big Big World click here.
Get ready, get set and learn!
March 3, 2006
It's Read Across America Week!
Originally created as a one-day event to celebrate the joy of reading on March 2, Dr. Seuss's birthday, the National Education Association’s Read Across America has grown into a nationwide initiative that promotes reading every day of the year. In fact many – if not all – schools in our region celebrated Read Across America Day throughout this entire week. Motivating children to read is an important factor in student achievement and creating lifelong successful readers. Research has shown that children who are motivated and spend more time reading do better in school.
So, in honor of Dr. Seuss – or Ted Geisel – today we’re focusing on activities that you can do with your child to help them become better readers. What is the one easily identifiable trait of any Dr. Seuss book? Rhyming. Almost silly and nonsensical rhyming most of the time. Dr. Seuss wasn’t a crazy fella – actually he took the tool of rhyming and made it into a learning experience for young children. How many kids can actually recite all of “The Cat in the Hat” or “The Grinch Who Stole Christmas?” Not only have children learned the words – and sometimes songs – that go along with Dr. Seuss’s books, the children have also learned to develop their retention skills along the way.
The Cat in the Hat
- • Discuss rainy day activities and create a rainy day poster board by having the children list their favorite thing to do on a rainy day. Have them place their ideas on a cut-out of a raindrop. Place the raindrops on the board around a picture of a house and a cat in a hat. Title the board "Fun in the Rain".
- • Collect various pictures of hats and place them around the house. Discuss each hat and when or where you might wear the hat.
- • Get ready to read the book “Cat in the Hat” by discussing some questions;
- • Have you ever been left at home alone? Why or why not?
- • Discuss times when it took lots of courage for you to tell something to your parents.
- • What would you do if a stranger came to your home and you were all alone?
- • Discuss strangers.
Book Selection
Your Favorite Seuss : A Baker's Dozen by the One and Only Dr. Seuss
by Dr. Seuss
A Hatful of Seuss: Five Favorite Dr. Seuss Stories
by Dr. Seuss
March 10, 2006
Reading Rainbow – Creating Better Writers and Illustrators
Each year WQLN and the Northwest Tri County Intermediate Unit partner together to bring LeVar Burton’s Reading Rainbow Contest to Northwestern PA. Time is running out to enter your child into the contest, so today we’re going to focus on some basic writing activities to get your child ready to enter! At WQLN, we like to turn passive TV viewing into active TV viewing and we do that through something we call the Learning Triangle – where you (view) a TV program with your child, (do) an activity related to the show, and then (read) a book about the program you just watched. Reading Rainbow actually designs its shows each week around the learning triangle model. Here’s an example:
Gregory, the Terrible Eater (View on WQLN)
This is a spirited story about Gregory, a goat that is a very picky eater. He refuses to eat the usual goat diet and his parents become very worried. In the video LeVar explores how people as well as animals need a nutritionally balanced diet. Join him on a fun-filled trip to the San Diego Zoo, Billy and Nanny's Barnyard Café and visit with a famous New York chef.
(Do) Make a Puppet
You will need:
• Brown paper lunch sack
• Yarn and paper scraps
• Crayons and/or markers
Directions:
Using the brown paper bag as the puppet, have your child decorate the bottom of the sack as a character.
Decorate with recycled scraps of paper, yarn string, etc, to create just the personality your child would like.
(Read): Visit your community library and find these great books.
Goats by Jason Cooper
The Baby Zoo by Bruce McMillan
Potluck by Anne Shelby
Why not continue the learning from Reading Rainbow by entering your child in the 2006 Reading Rainbow Young Writers and Young Illustrators contest? Visit http://www.wqln.org/education/contests/ for details!
March 17, 2006
Saint Patrick’s Day
St. Patrick: The patron saint of Ireland and the Irish, was born about 385 A.D. in Northern Wales. He studied religion in Europe to become a priest and bishop. He then brought Christianity to the Irish by teaching in Ireland for 29 years. According to early Irish tradition, he died on March 17, 461 AD. The anniversary of his death is celebrated as Saint Patrick's Day. St. Patrick is most known around the world as driving all the snakes out of Ireland through trickery.
The symbol of shamrocks: An Irish tale tells of how Patrick used the three-leafed shamrock to explain the Trinity. He used it in his sermons to represent how the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit could all exist as separate elements of the same entity. His followers adopted the custom of wearing a shamrock on his feast day. Green is associated with Saint Patrick's Day because it is the color of spring, Ireland, and the shamrock.
Making a Leprechaun Trap
Suggested Grades: K-3
Objective:
Students will use their knowledge of force and motion to make working leprechaun traps.
Materials:
- • junk (paper towel rolls, empty containers, tin foil, little boxes various shapes and sizes, scrap paper, string, sandwich bags, etc.)
- • tape, glue, stapler
- • markers
Method:
- • About a week before doing this activity send a note home requesting junk. You'll be amazed at what parents send over. The more the better!
- • Have students dig through all the junk and decide what they will need for their leprechaun trap.
- • Students build their traps. (I'd give them a half a day to do this, and be prepared for a giant mess)
- • Permit students to look through the junk as they need more items.
- • About half way through the time that you give your students, gather back as a class and discuss the strategies that some students are using, ie: If the leprechaun comes in here...this will happen...
- • Point out and try to encourage the use of force and motion.
- • Ask students to set their traps right before they go home.
- • Lock the doors when all of them have left, set each trap off and deposit a chocolate gold coin under it!
Book Selection
Jack and the Leprechaun
by Ivan Robertson, Katy Bratun (Illustrator)
March 24, 2006
What could it be?
Curriculum Idea:
Senses – We have five senses: sight, hearing, touch, smell, and taste. We can use different senses to learn different things. When one sense doesn’t work as well, we can use other senses. Investigating by using different senses is a good way to gather information and for “finding out.”
Related Episodes:
Five Senses, The Sloth Must be Crazy
Ages: 3-6
Subject: Life Science, Physiology
Skills:
Critical thinking, Investigative skills, Using five senses, Comparison, Language description
Materials:
Cloth to use as blindfold, various household objects for child to identify including things that they can smell, taste, touch and hear (such as: piece of fruit, cracker, lidded container with dry rice/pasta in it, rattle/bells, clean laundry, flower/plant, sandpaper, peeled hard-boiled egg, piece of Jell-O, wet bar of soap, soft and brushy strong smelling herbs like cilantro, piece of grass, frozen peas, whole clove of garlic, pumice stone, shells, silly putty, grapes with skin peeled off), towel to cover objects, paper, pen/pencil
Directions:
Before you begin this activity with your child, prepare the items that you are going to ask him to identify. (Be sure to select objects that are age-appropriate for your child and take into account any allergies.) Hide them beneath a towel so he cannot see them. Next, make a chart to track his observations about each object. For example:
Then, have your child sit near the objects and talk with him about the senses that he uses everyday. Most people can use their sense of sight, hearing, touch, smell, and taste to learn about things all around them. However, there are sometimes when we can’t use one of our senses, either temporarily or permanently. In those instances, we can use our other senses to tell us about things that are around us. For example, when it is dark, we may rely more on our sense of hearing or touch. If we get a head cold and temporarily lose our sense of smell, we may need to rely more on our sense of sight or taste while eating foods. Remind him that there are sometimes when it isn’t safe to use all of your senses to investigate an object. For example, there are many plants that are not safe to eat, and objects that could be very hot or cold are not safe to touch. Anytime that he is unsure of what something is or if it is safe, he should ask an adult.
Tell him that you are going to temporarily take away his sense of sight and ask him to use his other senses to identify objects. State that each of our senses functions in different ways and can tell us different things. By trying to use them one at a time, we can learn more about how they each work separately as well as how they work together. Put the blindfold on him and then take out the first object you have hidden. As you go through each object, ask him what he is observing from each of his senses. For example, how does this object smell, feel, sound, and taste (tell him that you will let him know if it is safe to use his sense of taste on each object). Ask the questions in a different order each time. You might put the first object into his hands and ask him how it feels before moving on to other senses. When you get to the next object, hold it in front of him so he can use his sense of smell first, or shake it so he using his sense of hearing first.
Keep track of your child’s observations on your chart. Remember to go through his senses in a different order each time. For example:
Talk About It: After your child experiences each object, cover the objects back up with the cloth, take the blindfold off, and discuss the way your child experienced Object #1. Talk about the description he gave based on each of his senses, and then ask him what he thinks the object was. Do this with each object. Ask questions such as, “How does the smell and the taste of the object go together? What kinds of things do you know that are crunchy like this one?” This will help reinforce your child’s discovery of each of our senses separately, as well as allowing him to think about how they might work together.
Take It Further: Stage a taste test for your child where you take away his sense of sight and of smell. Blindfold him and have him pinch his nose as you give him different things to taste, such as chocolate sauce (sweet), lemon juice (sour), soy sauce (salty), and black tea (bitter). Have him describe each taste. Then, with his nose unplugged, repeat the process and compare the difference in his observations. Talk about how our sense of smell and taste interact to help us enjoy delicious foods!
Different animals rely more on some senses than on others. For example, turtles have a very good sense of smell, but a poor sense of hearing. Bats have a very good sense of hearing and can hear sounds that we can’t. Help your child look in a book or online to learn about the different senses that his favorite animal relies on.
For other activities related to It’s a Big Big World click here.
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