Site Map Themes For Preschool

Language Arts

Table of contents

1. Letter/word detective 6. Word Bingo

2. Rhyme storm 7. Activity Sign In Sheets

3. Reading Trivia 8. Mail Box Game

4. Letter Collage 9. Silly Word Spelling Game

5. Nouns and Verbs Mystery Hat 10. Word Wheels

1. Letter/Word Detective: This can be done with the children at circle time, in small groups or individually. Get a book preferably with large print. Then give the child a magnifying class and if you like, before the activity you can make Sherlock Holmes style detective hats as well for the game. Read a page out of the book and then ask the child to identify a letter or word on that page while searching for it with the magnifying glass. For the younger children, I usually will start off with asking them to find a word that starts with a certain letter usually the first word of a sentence since it will capitalized. The next difficulty level is asking the child to find a lower case letter either at the start of a word or in the middle of a word. Finally as the children become more developmentally ready and built their site word and phonics skills you will ask the child to find a certain word on the page. Usually I start off with easier site noun words such as cat, dog, house, ext. and increase the level of difficulty of the words for children with strong language skills.

2 Rhyme Storm: The teacher says a word such as dog and then the children brain storm all the words that rhyme with dog. (it is your choice if you only will accept real words or silly words like wog that the children might say) After we say all the rhymes we can thin of, the children assist in writing a rhyming story with the words.

3. Reading Trivia: After each book you read to the class as a group or individually if you are a parent ask the children what parts of the story they liked and record those parts on note cards. Put the note cards in the reading trivia jar. After a few weeks pull out all the note cards and read parts of stories that children liked. After you read a part of the story the children liked, the children must attempt to guess the title and author of the story.

4. Letter Collage: This is a great activity to do to coincide with the letter you are learning about that week. Give the children a bunch of old newspapers and magazines. Make sure you skim through the papers and magazines before hand and remove and inappropriate content. Then have the children cut out pictures of things or even written words that start with a certain letter. The children will then paste these pictures on a large piece of paper to make the letter collage.

5. Nouns and Verbs Mystery Hat: First make a list of nouns in the classroom and verbs that the children can act out such as jump, sing, run, hop, etc. Then fold up the pieces of paper with those nouns and verbs written on them and put them in a hat. The children take turns picking one of the words out of the hat. The children must identify it as either a noun or a verb. If it is a noun they must find that noun in the classroom and touch it. If it is a verb the child must act out the verb.

6. Word Bingo

Create a bingo card but instead of having random letters on the board have each line spell out different words. Show the child letter flashcard then have them cover that letter with a maker where ever it appears on their bingo card. When an entire line is covered with markers have the child shout bingo. The child will then say what letters where covered from left to right and the teacher will write those letters on the easel or chalk board. After the entire word has been spelled out have the class try to sound out the word.

7. Activity Sign In Sheets:

During free choice activity time, create sign in sheets where the children must sign their name on the sheet before choosing that activity. Not only is this a good way for children to practice writing their name, but it keeps a daily record of the activities the child went to for the parent to see. Make sure the sign in sheets are large pieces of paper because many children will write their names in very large letters at this age.

8. Mail Box Game

This activity should be done over a few days; possibly while discussing postal workers during a community helpers theme. Part one of the activity, is get a large card board box,cut out a mail slot in it, and then have the children paint it blue. During another small group activity time, have the children draw pictures of anything they want, but make sure that they write their name on the picture. After the child draws the picture, have them put it in an envelope that has the name of another child in the class room written on it. Finallyhave the child “mail” the envelope in the mail box. The next day at circle, bring out the mail box. Pick a child one at a time and have them grab a letter from the mailbox. The child must then try to read the name of their classmate from the envelope and deliver the envelope to that child. When the other child opens the envelope, they will try to read or deduce who drew the picture in the envelope. This is a good activity to help the children learn to read their friends names and also learn about the job of a postal worker.

9. Spelling Silly Words Game

At Circle Time, have the children make up silly nonsensical words. After, discuss with the children how we could try to spell the word. Ask what sound their silly word starts with? What other letter or letter combination sounds do they hear in their silly word?

10. Word Wheels

Word wheels are a great way to teach children to learn phonics sounds and how to read 3 and 4 letter site words. To create a word wheel, cut out a circle and write different letters around the edge of the circle. Then cut out a rectangular arm with a phonetically ending sound written on it (such as ed, at, ig) and attach it to the world wheel using a fastener. The arm then spins around creating different words that the children can attempt to read and write by combining the beginning letter sound with then ending phonetically sound. Below is an example.