CHAPTER 16: ANIMALS AND COLORS

Most children are generally quite interested in animals, so learning animal words is usually motivating and fun. Learning these words also gives them a vocabulary that leads to recreational reading, since many children's stories are about animals. Color words, which are functional and basic, are easy to teach in conjunction with animal words. Goal: Your child will: increase her reading vocabulary to include animal and color words; practice reading and comprehending words by playing games; and read the book, Brown Bear, independently.

Games and Activities: Practice, Comprehension, and Generalization
Animal Lotto

Objective 7: Your child will practice reading and comprehending animal words by matching the words to symbols (line drawings) of animals.

Materials: Make an animal lotto game by copying and adapting the form in Appendix D-6. Print the names of the animals in the circles; paste reduced drawings of the animals Appendix C-17) on the disks. Color the animals on the disks the same as they are colored in Brown Bear.

Procedures: Show your child how to play animal lotto and give him opportunities to play animal lotto with others and alone. When playing with others, more than one lotto game can be used (or your child can play using two or more cards). For example: one player has the color card; the other player has the animal card. The disks with the drawings and color words are placed face down on the table. The players take turns drawing disks, determining whose card it belonged to, and playing it. (See "Playing Lotto," Chapter 8).

You can also combine the color and animal lotto games. Use the color lotto card you made for color lotto. Have your child match the animal (colored the same as the animals in the book) with the color on the color lotto game card. For example, match the bear with brown; the frog with green. When all the disks are matched, the animals are in the correct sequence. Your child can now tell you the story of Brown Bear using the lotto game as a guide.