- Hey!

Welcome to our PBS Classroom.

I am so excited that you're here with me again.

I'm Mrs. Hammock and I'm here to help you so we can practice and learn all the skills that you need to be an excellent reader and writer and thinker.

I am so happy to see you.

We have a lot of learning to do and we're going to be practicing some phonemic awareness where we train our ears.

We're gonna practice some letters and sounds.

We're gonna do some high frequency words and then I have a really beautiful, brand new story to share with you about helping everyone to feel welcome.

And this first week of school, that's exactly what we wanna do.

We want everyone to feel safe and welcome and that they belong at school.

And that is an important, you have an important part in that.

All right, let's sing our Good Morning song.

Do you remember it?

All right, well, try it out with me.

Do our sign language.

Here we go.

♪ Good morning ♪ ♪ Good morning ♪ ♪ Good morning to you ♪ ♪ Good morning ♪ ♪ Good morning ♪ ♪ Good morning to you ♪ ♪ Our day is beginning ♪ ♪ There's so much to do ♪ ♪ Good morning ♪ ♪ Good morning ♪ ♪ Good morning to you ♪ Oh, it is a good morning 'cause I get to be here with you and we're going to do so much learning to make our brains strong and ready to read.

So I want to point out some things in our classroom that maybe you've seen this week, but I haven't really talked much about.

So I'd like to start here with our sounds spelling board.

So this is not the same as an alphabet.

We do have an alphabet way up there so that you can know the order of the alphabet, but this is not like that.

This board is a tool to help us learn the sounds and the spelling patterns.

So here we have the letters on the cards and a picture to help us remember the sound, and then in the yellow boxes, we have the spelling pattern.

How do we write that sound to make that sound on paper?

So when we're writing words, that's like talking on paper.

So how do we know which, what to write so we make the correct sound?

And so that's what these yellow parts are.

So our board is divided different than an alphabet.

We put them in groups by the type of letters that they are.

So our consonants are all of the letters that are not vowels.

Our alphabet is made up of two kinds of letters.

We have consonants, and we have vowels.

The vowels can be short vowels or long vowels and when they're short vowels, they say one sound, and when they're long vowels, they say another.

But if a letter is not a vowel, then it's a consonant.

And we're gonna learn all about that this year.

There are five vowels that we will be learning or reviewing the sounds and the spelling patterns and we'll also be learning those long spelling patterns, which those can be very tricky.

Our language is very complicated and so I want you to pay close attention when we're doing these letters and sounds because I know you can do hard things and you're gonna learn them and be able to write and read anything.

We have other parts of our language where we have letters that work together like a team, and we're gonna talk about those too.

We have digraphs, we have vowel teams, we have diphthongs, and our control vowels.

We're gonna learn all of these thing this year together and you're gonna have an opportunity to read and practice them with me and hopefully at home on your own as well.

So, this is our sounds spelling board and you will probably see something like this in your classroom as your school because lots of teachers use these sound spelling patterns to help boys and girls crack the code of reading.

And that's what we wanna do.

All right, to start today, we are going to train our ears for sound and we're gonna play a blending game.

So blending is when we take individual sounds and we put them together to make a word.

So it's kind of like sounding out a word.

So let me show you what I mean.

I'm gonna say some sounds and then I'm gonna put it together to show you that it's a word.

Okay, and I'm gonna use my arm and my hand as a topper.

So I'm gonna say it like this.

(makes K sound) E. K-ey, key.

Did you hear how I started with the (makes K sound) and the E?

And then I said key.

And then I went a little faster, key.

You know the word key.

So let's try another word.

Let's do the word... Let's do this word.

I'm not gonna tell you the word.

I almost told you the word.

I'm gonna tell you the sounds and I want you to tell me the word.

Are you ready?

Okay, let's try it.

Put your arm out, here we go.

K-id, k-id.

Kid.

Kid, kid.

Great job!

All right, let's try another one.

Are you ready?

Here we go.

P-a-ck.

All right, let's do it a little faster.

P-ack.

Pack.

Pack, very nice!

All right, let's do one more.

Are you ready?

K-eep.

Keep.

Keep.

Keep!

Terrific.

You see how when we start out with each individual sound and then we go a little faster, you can start to hear the word that we are blending.

That's what good readers do.

All right, now we're going to look at some letters and sounds of review from what you might already know from last year.

And we're gonna take a look at them right here with our big sound spelling cards.

So there are a lot easier to see.

So let's start here.

We have C, camel.

(makes K sound) Now, that can be tricky for boys and girls because C sounds like it should say the sss sound.

But most of the time, it doesn't make that sound.

The name of the it C. Then there's a (makes K sound) camel.

And that's the clue that helps us know that it's the K sound.

And there are three ways that we can write that sound.

When we hear a word that has the K sound in it, that means it's either a C, a K, or a C-K to spell that.

The C-K, do you see that line there?

That means it only comes at the end of a word.

You will not use a C-K to spell a word at the beginning.

So that is the letter C. Here we have the letter J. J, jump.

J, jump, (makes J sound).

Look how many ways there are to spell that sound.

Let's count.

One, two, three, four.

Ay-yi-yi!

That can be confusing.

For right now, we're just gonna look at that sound spelling.

Just the J by itself.

Later on, we'll add the others when we get a little more fluent with this one, okay?

Here is the letter K. K, koala, (makes K sound).

(gasps) Did you notice something?

Right!

Look here.

C-K, C-K for the (makes K sound) camel sound, C. C-K, C-K. Because they say the same sound, right?

C and K both are spelled the same ways.

There are three ways to spell that sound.

Sometimes it's a C, sometimes it's a K, and sometimes it's a C-K, very nice.

All right, here we have the letter Q. Q, queen, qua.

Now I want you to notice that next to the Q when we spell it is a U. almost always.

I say almost 'cause there are a few things that don't follow the rule, but almost always Q is with its partner U.

You almost never see Q by itself.

So when you her the qua sound, I want you to always remember to make sure you put a U behind it, okay?

And then we have V, volcano, (makes V sound).

Ooh, that tickled my lip.

If you make that sound correctly, it should give your lip a little tickle.

(making V sound) Your teeth are gonna touch your lip and it kinda tickles a little.

Then we have short U. U, umbrella, (makes short U sound).

I don't know why, but sometimes, it helps me to think of uuuup.

When I see that letter, I wanna remember that the uuup is the sound that short U makes.

So I hope that will help you and we will be revisiting these all throughout the year, and you're gonna get to be an expert.

I just know it.

All right.

Are you ready to look at some of our high frequency words?

Now remember, these are review words.

These are words that you should know but if there are some words that you do not know, write them down so you can practice.

All right, we're going to see it, we're gonna read it, and we're gonna spell it, and then if you have something at home to write with, I'd like you to write it down.

Here is our first word, me.

Me.

M-E spells me.

I have the word here.

Here.

H-E-R-E, here.

Then I have where.

Where.

Do you see that W-H?

It makes the WH sound.

Where.

W-H-E-R-E. That's like where are you going?

Here's this word.

Are.

A-R-E, are.

Then I have with.

Now this one, you can sound out.

W-ith, with.

W-I-T-H. And then I have she.

S-H-E. She.

Did you notice here?

Me and she.

Pretty tricky.

All right, did you know those?

I hope so.

All right, now let's go and we're gonna practice writing these letters to make sure you know how to form the letters correctly.

We're gonna go over to our writing board and we're gonna practice, let's go.

All right, so the first letter that we are going to work on is the letter C. So for a capital or uppercase C, we start a little bit below the line, and we go up and around, and we curve up, just like that.

Lowercase C looks exactly like that, only it only fills up this bottom space.

We start a little bit under the dotted line, go up and around, just like that.

Okay?

All right, let's try the letter J. Uppercase J or capital J, we start at the top.

Remember, we always start at the top.

We go down and give it a hook.

Now, some people like to put a hat on top.

It doesn't matter.

If you like to draw a line on top, you can.

If you want it without one, that's okay too.

All right, and now a lowercase J.

It looks just like this one, watch me.

It starts at the dotted line, but it's gonna hang under the bottom line, and then instead of a hat, it has a little dot.

Tricky.

Okay, what's our next one?

Do you remember?

K, very good.

All right, watch this K. Straight line down.

Then we're gonna go over here and we're gonna go kind of at a diagonal or angle.

We're gonna go over like that and then we're gonna go out like that.

That can be kind of tricky to make.

Nice straight lines, but sometimes it's hard to get that slanted line, and then the lowercase K, we're gonna start at the top and go down, and it's gonna be the same, only we're gonna do it from the middle of the paper where the dotted line is and go out.

So it looks a lot like the uppercase.

It's just a little, that part right there is a little shorter.

Let's try the letter Q. Oh, I like Q. Q's a fun one.

All right, so watch this.

We're going to make a circle.

That's pretty easy, right?

We're gonna make a great big circle that touches the top all the way to the bottom, and then we're going to put a little stick on it.

Easy.

Lowercase Q, though, doesn't look anything like the uppercase Q.

So it can be tricky for learners.

We're gonna start at the dotted line and we're gonna make a circle, and then we're gonna put a stick that hangs down under the line and a little tail on it like that.

Okay, so that is what a lowercase Q looks like and it can be hard for boys and girls to kind of remember what letter that is.

We're gonna do a V. Start at the top, go all the way down, kind of at a slant, not straight, it's a little bit slanted, and then we're gonna go all the way back up to the top.

The lowercase V looks just like it.

Start at the dotted line, so slanted down a little bit, just a teeny slant, and then all the way back up.

So we have C and J and K, Q and V, hmm, what do you think?

What should we do next?

Yeah, let's do the lowercase U.

Now watch lowercase U.

We start at the top, we go around, and it's nice and round at the bottom.

Go all the way back up, and I like to trace down the side and put a little stick on it.

You don't have to, though.

That's just how I make mine.

And the lowercase U is the same way.

We start at the dotted line, it goes all the way around, and then it has a little stick on it.

That's it.

How'd you do?

Now, if you have trouble making one of these or more of them, I want you to practice.

You can practice with a marker, you can practice with a crayon, you can practice tracing it on the carpet with your finger.

There's lots of fun ways for you to practice writing your letters so that you can get really good at it and train your brain to be strong.

I have a fabulous story that I would like to share with you.

It's a brand new one.

Do you see our little characters here on the wall?

And our posters?

This story has those same characters in it and it's called All Are Welcome.

And I want you to think about it as we read it so that we can talk about what that might mean, okay?

Let's go to the story chair.

I'm gonna put on my glasses.

If you wear glasses to help your eyes to be their best, don't ever worry about wearing them because that, we have to do whatever makes sense for us and some people need to wear glasses and that's okay.

I know sometimes learners are worried about wearing glasses 'cause they're worried someone will make fun of them.

And that is interesting to think about because we're gonna talk about this story and see if you can see how that might be connected.

All Are Welcome by Alexandra Penfold and Suzanne Kaufman.

All right.

You see all the kids?

Yeah, they're pretty cute.

All right, let's see here.

I'm gonna take this book jacket off for now and I'm gonna come back to it later because there's something I wanna show you on the inside of that.

But right now, let's jump into our story and see what's going on.

It says here, "All are welcome."

That's so cute.

Oh, look, do you know what that is?

That's a taxi.

We don't have a lot of taxis that we see on our roads here.

We do have them, but often they're at the airport or at the train station.

We don't see a lot of them driving around our neighborhoods.

"Pencils sharpened in their case.

"Bells are ringing, let's make haste.

"School's beginning, dreams to chase.

"All are welcome here."

What a nice classroom.

Everybody's moms and dads are coming in and getting them situated so they can start school.

"No matter how you start your day, "what you wear, when you play, "or if you come from far away, "all are welcome here."

We want our schools to be a place where everyone feels welcome.

No matter where they come from in the whole wide world, or what they wear when they play outside or what they wear when they come to school.

Those are not important things.

We want everyone to feel welcome.

"In our classroom safe and sound, "fears are lost and hope is found.

"Raise your hand, we'll go round.

"All are welcome here."

Doesn't that look like they're having a good time in their classroom?

See how they're raising their hands and waiting their turns?

She's laughing.

They look like they're having a... Ooh, look, book buddies.

They're reading.

Everyone looks pretty friendly.

"Gather now, let's all take part.

"We'll play music and we'll make art."

Nice.

"We'll share stories from the heart.

"All are welcome here."

Oh, look, see here's a friend that's in a wheelchair and here's a friend wearing glasses, and another one wearing glasses.

And look, this one's wearing glasses but he has a white stick.

That means that's he's blind.

He can't see with his eyes.

"Time for lunch, what a spread.

"A dozen different kinds of bread.

"Pass it around 'til everyone's fed.

"All are welcome here."

Ooh, lunch time, look at that.

Look at how nicely everyone is sitting in their chair.

Isn't that nice?

That makes the room feel calm so that you can eat and concentrate.

"Open doors, rush outside, "we will swing and we will slide.

"We'll have fun side by side "because all are welcome here.

"We're part of a community.

"Our strength is our diversity.

"A shelter from adversity.

"All are welcome here."

Diversity means that we're all different.

We all come from different places and different ways of doing things, and that's a great thing.

How boring it would be if we were all exactly the same.

"We will learn from each other.

"Special talents we'll uncover.

"There's a big world to discover."

Look at all the things they're learning about.

Bugs and the solar system, volcanoes, slime, dinosaurs.

Ooh, and look, that's Science right there.

"All are welcome here."

Ooh, how exciting.

Look at that dragon dance.

That comes from China.

"So much to learn, so much to do, "and when the busy day is through, "can't wait to come back and start anew "because all are welcome here.

"Head for home, get some rest, "and greet tomorrow, ready and fresh."

There she's taking a bath and putting on her jammies.

Mom and Dad are tucking them into bed.

"Our time together is the best.

"All are welcome here.

"You have a place here.

"You have a space here."

Now watch, this is so cool.

Watch this, look what they did with this story.

I'm gonna open this page.

Look at that, wow.

It says you are welcome here.

Now, I gotta stretch this all the way out.

Look at that.

Wow!

Isn't that great?

That is beautiful.

Aren't you glad that we are not all exactly the same?

That's how we can learn from one another.

If we were all the same, we wouldn't be able to learn from each other.

Look how cool this is.

This is the book jacket and it's a little poster.

Isn't that sweet?

Look at all those friends.

I love it.

So, being a good friend is important and since we're coming back to school after being away for a long time, you have an important job to be friendly and to be kind and to make sure that everyone feels welcome.

You can do your part by being kind and friendly and helping others that might be nervous or remember, we talked about having the jitters of starting school.

Maybe you could help someone calm down their jitters by being kind and friendly.

I think that you can do it.

We're gonna talk about this maybe tomorrow.

It's talking about good choices and poor choices and how we can do that and make our classroom a great place to spend time and learn.

I hope you have a great day and I look forward to seeing you tomorrow.

Bye-bye.