Early Childhood Technology Literacy Grant Literacy Activity

Level of Reader(s): Emergent, Early Fluent

Balanced Literacy Element(s): Paired Reading, Independent Writing

Developed by: Elaine Greenspan, ESOL and 2nd Grade Reading Initiative Teacher

Edited by: Bonny Chambers

Overview: Emergent and Early fluent readers and ESOL students enjoy learning about and using adjectives as they create a friend in Bailey's Book House and write a sentence to describe it.

Concepts and Outcomes:

The students will:

• read color words and other words describing attributes
• write complete sentences to describe a picture

Materials:

• Computer
• TV or projection device for modeling (if possible)
• Bailey's Book House
• printer
• paper, pencils, crayons
• picture or stuffed animal
• index cards

Learning Sequence:
Note: If you are not familiar with the My Friend activity, pages 35-38 of the Bailey's Book House teacher's guide give an overview of the activity, describe the two modes of play and gives suggestions for additional off the computer activities to support the concepts.

1. Begin by showing a picture or large stuffed animal to the class. Label several parts of the animal with the students. (brown hair, big eyes....) Have the students imagine and share some things they think this animal/creature would like. Explain to the students that they will be using the program Bailey's Book House to create some friends of their own.
2. Introduce the My Friend activity from the program Bailey's Book House. Begin by showing students how to navigate to this activity by clicking on the "friend" in the Book House.
   (You can reproduce the "map" of the house on page 8 of the Bailey's Book Teacher's Guide to use as a direction card at your computer)
3. Use the explore and discover mode with the group. Ask for two or three volunteers to come up and complete the activity. Have the students practice saying a complete sentence to describe the friend.
4. Switch to the Question and Answer mode by clicking on the inchworm picture and have one or students find the missing word.
5. Model for students what you expect them to do when they work in pairs at the computer(s).
6. Allow the students to work in pairs at the computer to make and print 2 friends. They will take turns being the "mouse driver" and the "director". (Students can work in either the explore and discover or the question and answer mode depending on their needs.)
7. Once the students have a printed friend, they will write at least one complete sentence to describe their friend and at least one complete sentence that tells something their friend likes to do. As a group, you can establish a rubric to evaluate student writing.
8. Interested or higher level students may decide to write a story about their friend.
9. Give students the opportunity to share their writing in small groups, or with the entire class.

Teacher Reflections:

• My students were very motivated to use the computer to make their own friend. They enjoyed writing about the friend they created. They also liked sharing their writing with the class.