- crayons
- markers
- paper
- pencils
- author
- first
- front cover
- illustrator
- next
- title
MA Standards:
English Language Arts/Writing/W.PK.MA.1 Dictate words to express a preference or opinion about a topic (e.g., “ I would like to go to the fire station to see the truck and meet the firemen.”)
Head Start Outcomes:
Literacy Knowledge/Early Writing Experiments with writing tools and materials.
Literacy Knowledge/Early Writing Uses scribbles, shapes, pictures, and letters to represent objects, stories, experiences, or ideas.
PreK Learning Guidelines:
English Language Arts/Composition 16 Use their own words or illustrations to describe their experiences, tell imaginative stories, or communicate information about a topic of interest.
Make a Garden Book
© Commonwealth of Massachusetts, Department of Early Education and Care (Jennifer Waddell photographer). All rights reserved.
Skill Focus: Concepts of Print, Early Writing, Vocabulary
Tell children they are going to make their own group book about vegetable gardens.
- On the first page, write the title, Vegetables in a Garden, and include an area for all children “authors” to write their names on the cover. Invite each child to draw, dictate, or write his or her name.
- Read the title aloud, pointing to each word and noting the spaces between words. Ask each child to draw one of the vegetable plants they learned about today that they would like to grow in their vegetable garden. Have them think about whether it is a leaf, root, or stem vegetable; what they like about it; and how they would describe it.
- Then give each child a sheet of paper and have him or her draw pictures of the vegetable plant.
- After children have completed their drawings, tell them you are going to help them complete a sentence about the plant. Have them dictate or write to fill in the sentence below:
<Name> likes <plant> because it is <descriptive words>.
Compile the pages into one book and ask children to illustrate the covers (front and back.) Place the book in the Library Center for everyone to share.