The 'Like' Book

We have been working on a high frequency word program at our school where we teach children five high frequency words over two weeks through a variety of learning engagements (i.e. play dough, iPad apps, chalkboards etc.). After going through the first few words on the list, we finally hit our first four letter word 'like'. For a variety of reasons, this word was just tougher for many of my kids to remember! So I decided to make a class book all about it! The first thing we did was to all create a class chart together of one thing that each of us liked. With this list, I typed up the last word naming what each child liked and purposefully chopped up the word into chunks. For instance, one child said "I like the sand pit". I cut up the words 'sand' and 'pit' into 'sa-n-d' and 'p-i-t' because this child was working on hearing more middle sounds in his writing. As I suspected, when he put together the word 'sand' he put two pieces together 'sa-d' and missed out on the 'n'. So, I asked him to stretch out the word again slowly, he heard the 'n' and inserted it into the correct place.

The children had to write the words "I like to" or "I like the" using the word wall as an aid. There was no excuse for wrong spelling, as I emphasized to the children where they could find these words. I also wanted to make a book that was spelled correctly because our class books are kept in our book corner, and for this book, I wanted the kids to really be able to reread their own work as well as that of their peers. For the last part of each child's sentence, they pieced the letters chunks back together, and glued the word onto their page.

I compiled all of this into Explain Everything by taking pictures of each page and then taking a video clip of each child saying what they liked and why! Here is the book.

I stuck a QR code to the front cover of this book as well so that if the kids wanted to, they could get an iPad and listen to the story as well (through this video as a link).

(There is a spelling error, 'danceing' on one the pages! We've corrected it in the actual book since this recording! :))