Early Learning Lesson

Make Your Own Recipe
Provide the ingredients, then stand back and let the child create a new snack.

What You Need
a variety of ingredients, such as:

• apples
• pears
• walnuts
• honey
• coconut
• cinnamon

Here's How

1. Show the children the ingredients that are available.
2. Encourage the children to select from the ingredients and combine them to make a snack.
3. Write down each child's recipe.
4. Encourage each child to think of a name for his or her snack.
5. Taste the new creation.

From Teaching Young Children (EMC 4506)

Kindergarten Connection

Reading Stories

Children love to hear stories. There are many ways that you can incorporate important prereading skills into story time.

Materials: a story book

Here's How:

1. Retell the story. A child's ability to retell, to summarize, and to order the events in a story are indicators of reading readiness. When you have finished reading a story, ask the children to tell what the story was about.
2. Predict what will happen next. Stop reading and ask the children to predict what will happen next. Listen carefully and then read on to see if the prediction was correct.
3. Sequence events in a story. Read the story. Identify with the children the important things that happened in the story. Have the children draw a picture or write a word on an index card to represent each thing. Put the cards in order to show the sequence of events.
4. Extend the story. After you have finished reading, ask the children to make up a new adventure for the characters in the story or think of a different ending. Write the adventure or keyboard it as the children tell you about it. Add pictures and a cover. You can start your own set of stories.

From Teaching Young Children (EMC 4506)

Word of the Week

grip
verb
When you hold something very tightly, you grip it.

The climber gripped the rope as she made her way up the steep mountain.

Which words mean about the same thing as grip?

• hold on
• clutch
• drop
• grab
• let go

Tell about a time when you would have fallen if you hadn't had something to grip. Where were you? What did you grip?

From A Word a Day, Grades 1-3 (EMC 2717)

Ten-Minute Activity

Finish It Your Way
Language Arts
Skill: Critical Thinking

Materials: paper, pencils

Here's How:

1. Recite a familiar nursery rhyme and ask a question about what could happen next. For example,
   Little Miss Muffet sat on a tuffet,
   Eating her curds and whey;
   Along came a spider who sat down beside her,
   And frightened Miss Muffet away.
   Where did Miss Muffet go?
2. Have students write for 3 minutes in response to the question.
3. Allow them to share their responses.

Variation
Read a portion of a literature story and have students write about what could happen next.

From Ten-Minute Activities, Grades 1-3 (EMC 784)

Word of the Week

whimsical
adjective
Having the possibility of changing at any time.
synonym: unpredictable

It was difficult to learn the dance routine when our whimsical teacher added new moves every week.

Which word means about he same thing as whimsical?

• stable
• variable
• believable
• changeable
• predictable

Describe someone you know who is whimsical.

From A Word a Day, Grades 4-8 (EMC 2718)

Ten-Minute Activity

Opposites
Language Arts
Skill: Antonyms

Materials: chalkboard, chalk, paper, pencils

Here's How:

1. Divide the class into teams. Each team needs paper and a pencil.
2. Each team writes a pair of antonyms on its paper.
3. Then the first team writes one of its antonyms on the board.
4. Each of the other teams has an opportunity to give an antonym for the one on the board.
   - Award a point for any correct antonym.
   - The team that wrote the word on the board may give its antonym last to earn a point if no other team gave it.
   - Antonyms can't be repeated.
5. The next team writes one of its antonyms on the board, and the game continues.
   

Example
The first team writes "tiny" and "large" on their paper. A team member writes "tiny" on the board. The other teams might give the antonyms "huge," "enormous," and "gigantic." The team that wrote "tiny" on the board can then earn a point by saying "large" because the other teams didn't use that antonym.

Variation
The teams write pairs of synonyms instead of antonyms.

From Ten-Minute Activities, Grades 4-6 (EMC 785)

Science Activity

Locomotion
Life Science
Process Skill: Comparing

All animals move in some way. Most animals move around to find food, water, shelter, and even air.
Think about how each of the following kinds of animals moves from one place to another: fish, birds, mammals, and insects.

• Have each group member choose one kind of animal. Draw and label a picture showing how the animal you chose moves around.
• As a group, compare all the drawings. Discuss what body parts are used for movement. Tell how the movement is suited to the animal's environment.

From Science Cooperative Learning Cards (EMC 5006)