I just had to let you know about a great activity that a parent shared with me recently. Whilst doing some home learning with her 5-year-old daughter Orla, she decided to create a simple Connect Set in Clicker to support her daughter’s writing – with fantastic results!
The class had been reading Rod Campbell's storybook Dear Zoo, and the activity set by the teacher was to write their own version of the story. So, mom and Orla looked at the book together (there are loads of read-aloud versions online if you don’t have the book at home) and built a simple framework to structure the writing.
They chose different animals together and selected the best describing words for each one. They also personalized it by having the zoo send animals to Orla (me), mommy/daddy, and Orla’s teachers – this offered the added opportunity to practice using “I/he/she” in the right context in the sentences.
Mom said, “Orla enjoyed listening to the words to order the sentences, and it was a good chance to practice reading the words and identifying the tricky words she’s been learning.”
Mum also loved the fact that Orla was encouraged to use a period in order to hear her sentences read back to her. “When we wanted to add an extra word like 'and' (because she wanted to choose a few animals at the end to keep), we used Clicker’s on-screen keyboard so she could try writing it herself. This is a real bonus with Clicker as Orla doesn't recognize the capital letters on the laptop keyboard!”
Find out more on our Clicker page, and see LearningGrids for lots of ready-made ideas to support your own children in their home or class learning. If you’re looking for other resources linked to a “pets” theme, why not take a look at our Perfect Pet story on LearningGrids? You can also use the storyboard activity to plan out a story about a day with your perfect pet!
Here is Orla’s amazing Dear Zoo writing, and I’ll leave the last words to mom: “I didn’t realize she would get so much out of it at her age with such early reading/writing skills, but it just shows the power of Clicker!”
