pbs love, day numero dos

Today was Day 2 of our PBS Super WHY! Week, and the focus was Wonder Red–Words Day!

We’re having fun with it, so here goes:

• Day 2 Activities: You can find your Wonder Red–Words Day sheet here. You’ll also want the mask and Worksheet 1 and Worksheet 2. (They’re Worksheets 3 & 4 when you download them from the PBS site.)

We did things differently today, since Maddy and Owen are used to playing games and doing activities before rest time and then watch their show after rest time, I followed that pattern, and it worked well.

We talked about how we are doing a Super WHY! week this week and that today was Wonder Red Words Day. Maddy wore the mask for a bit but Owen refused–no biggie. I think he’ll be much more excited about the Super Why mask later in the week, and I can’t say I blame him.

Worksheet 1 is what we started with, and they loved it. This is the worksheet where they complete words by adding in the missing letters. I talked a little about the -all family before started to give them some context:

In my hands, I’m holding a ‘ball’ and I’m leaning against Maddy’s bedroom wall. Ball. Wall. What do you notice about how the words ‘ball’ and ‘wall’ sound?

They said, They rhyme!

That’s right! You are super readers already. They rhyme. What other words can you think of that rhyme with ‘ball’ and ‘wall’?

We brainstormed a bunch of words from the -all family, and we repeated it a few times. Then I gave them the first Worksheet.

Maddy’s Worksheet 1. Can I have another one, Mommy?

Next, we did Worksheet 2, which was a great follow-up to the first sheet.

This is where students match words to their corresponding pictures. Maddy ate it up and asked for more (okay, so maybe she is ready for Kindergarten. . . sigh). Owen needed more help, but he was still pretty much diggin’ it.

I stopped there for today, and we rocked out again to the same episode of Super WHY!, The Three Little Pigs. I’m going to see how many consecutive days they take it, then I’ll switch the episode. The curriculum suggests watching the same episode each day. I noticed today that when Owen first saw T-ALL on the screen, he yelled, That spells ‘tall’! Pretty cool.

Okay, so here’s what I thought. . .

I liked:

• that the worksheets were clear, easy for little ones to understand, and that they were somewhat scaffolded–W-1 was a little more difficult than W-2, and they could use W-1 to complete W-2;
• that there were letters to choose from on W-1, on the right-hand column;
• that the pictures on W-2 were very obvious and Maddy and Owen both knew what each was;
• that we did the worksheets first today–seemed to work better for us.

I wish:

• that W-2 had slightly bigger words and pictures (they both wanted to color the tiny pictures when we were finished);
• that maybe instead of W-2, or as a follow-up, the words and pictures were provided in a sort (you know I love sorts–and it’s a great way for kiddos to learn word concepts without another worksheet).

That’s it! Let me know what you think!

And for those friends who leave me feedback at all on what they think of this Super WHY! week, they will be entered in a drawing for a Steve Songs: The Marvelous Musical Adventures CD/ DVD. How fun?!

The deadline will be midnight Friday, and if you’d like additional entries, you can: 1. tweet about the contest; 2. subscribe to teachmama via email or a feed; and/or 3. follow teachmama! Just let me know!

Thanks, PBS!