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Grade: Pre-School
Subject: Reading/Writing
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Sesame Street Letters Subject: English or Phonics
Age Level: Ages 3-6 Recommended for pre-school or kindergarten grades
Objective: This lesson is designed to help children learn the letters of the alphabet, learn about different shapes, learn to rhyme, and listen to the different sounds of the alphabet to help them sound out words and begin elementary level reading. Students will also match items, as well as sing songs, play games, explore, listen to music, watch video clips, and listen to stories. The most important lesson that I continually stress, is to always have fun!!!!!!
Pre-requisite knowledge: This is a very early elementary level lesson, so no real pre-requisite knowledge is required. It may help to have students introduced to the alphabet and to the sounds of the letters.
Instructions to the teacher: I recommend that the teacher plays the game or program first. This will ensure that the teacher can answer any questions and has an idea what exactly the child is receiving from the program. I also suggest that the teacher installs the program into the computer beforehand to avoid any problems or delays. I recommend that the teacher reinforces what the child is learning each day by re-introducing the letters and sounds after they finish working on the program. Make the lesson fun and exciting for the children!!! Browse through the internet page and print pages to color, send a note home informing parents of the site and encourage the family to work with the children. Use some of the questions from the site to quiz the children on what they have learned.
Hardware and software requirements: Smart Saver CTW Sesame Street Letters: IBM PC or compatible with an 80386 processor or higher, Windows 3.1 / 95/ 98, it is a cd-rom disc
Instructions to the students: (1) Explore the software. On the beginning page listen to the words of Telly and Oscar. Follow the directions. Move the star to objects that sparkle, click on them and see what happens.
(2) Move around the screen and visit each of the places on the screen. You will visit Big Birds House, Bert and Ernie's apartment, Oscar's trash can, and Snuffalupagus' home. Play each of their games a couple of times.
(3) In each of the places that you visit, make sure that you do all of the activities and play the games, click on every object that the star sparkles on. Use the phone, listen to the radio, and watch tv and listen to a story at each of the places that you visit.
(4) If you have any questions feel free to ask the teacher.
(5) After you have finished looking over the software, have the teacher connect you to the Sesame Street internet site.
(6) Explore the internet site
(7) Go the Where Kids Rule icon and click on it, here you can vote on different books, games, music or tv and see what other children have voted.
(8) There is also a Family Web Fun icon, here you can send an e- mail to any Sesame Street character you would like. Send an e-mail or picture and print it for the class bulletin board.
(9) Visit the Pre-school Playground icon, here you can listen to a story about Prairie Dawn and the letter M. Listen to the story because the teacher is going to ask you about the letter M.
(10) Visit the Recognizing Letter Sounds page, and listen to the Sesame Street Muppet as they hold up each letter of the alphabet and show you a picture that the letter begins with. Sound out the letters as they appear.
(11) Have Fun!!!!!
Student Handouts: Student handouts are included at the end. These are pages to color and learn from. I have included a letter, number, water safety, fire safety, and shape handout. These can all be colored and there is an additional activity written on each sheet at the bottom of the page. Also any pages can be printed off of the internet site listed below.
Time Limit: 1 week is required to gain and ensure knowledge of the alphabet. One to two hours a day should work well.
Internet Site: www.ctw.org/home This is the CTW Family Workshop, The home of Sesame Street! This internet site is excellent to enhance the skills of the program. This is also good for the parents to explore, they have some excellent tips and suggestions on raising children. There is plenty of places for kids to explore, a place where kids can go and vote on books, games, music, and tv. Here they can rate them and compare their results to the votes of other children. There is also a Family Web Fun page that the whole family can explore. Some of the options here include helping a pre-schooler build a web page, send e-mail to a Sesame Street character, make a story book on-line, and tickle Elmo virtually. The only disadvantage is for the story book on-line, you need a Shockwave Plug-In (Macromedia). Also to tickle Elmo virtually you need a JAVA enabled browser. The site also includes the pre-school playground where children can listen to stories about letters, this reinforces the Sesame Street software program. It also includes A Parents Activity Guide where parents can print and copy pages on reading, math, thinking skills, social skills, and health and safety. These pages are ideal for teachers also. There are a number of games, letter and number recognition, coloring, matching, shapes, e-mail, hidden letter games etc. The site is amazing, there is so much to explore and learn from. It also gives on-screen advice to parents and teachers. It suggests questions to ask the students while they do the activities, it offers further activities to engage children in, and suggests other books that go along with the lesson etc. This is an excellent site to tie in with the program to help the children!!
Assessment Mechanism: A test is included. Since the children are so young the teacher should read the test aloud and give time for the student to respond, on paper! Some test suggestions include, drawing three shapes and asking students which is the triangle, or another idea is to say draw a triangle etc. Ask students to name or draw the letter B etc. Give students the choice of three objects and ask them what starts with the letter C, the letter E. Write down a rhyme sentence and ask students to finish the rhyme as they did in the software with Big Bird. These are just some suggestions, the internet site also may be able to help with some ideas for testing!
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