Large Group Literacy: Food & Nutrition

My Favorite Food Language Chart
Students take turn listing their favorite food using complete sentences.  Teachers write full dictation of each student's sentence.  Can also be altered to a class book in which students also draw a picture of their favorite food.

If You Give a Pig a Pancake Big Book Reading
Big Books are wonderful opportunities to demonstrate tracking print to students.  The if-then statements in the books can pose to opportunities to ask students what the pig will want to do next.  Don't have this title?  That's fine!  Gather up another title that has to do with food and roll.

Pizza Order Cards
Prior to this, we have been practicing with our fingers in the air Numeral Song by Dr. Jean Feldman.  Now we put the numeral song to practice here.  We have asked parents to donate ingredients to make pizza in the classroom this week.  Today, the students will make their pizza orders for making pizza the next day.  Each student has a sheet with pepperoni, cheese, black olives, and mushrooms with lines next to each image.  The students attempt to write the number (between 0-10) of each ingredient that they would like on their pizza.  Name at the top, first thing (no name, how will we make your pizza?).

Little Red Hen retelling using props
I prefer to use the flannel story as that is what I have in my classroom but again, whatever props you can make or find will work out well.

Large Group Literacy: Halloween

5 Senses Pumpkin Chart
To prepare for this graphic organizer, you can either use chart paper OR orange bulletin paper.  Cut your paper into the shape of a pumpkin, then split the pumpkin into five segments using markered lines.  Label each segment a sense; smell, touch, taste, sound, and sight.  Place a large pumpkin in the center of your carpet or discussion area.  I let students take turns approaching it and choose which sense they'd like to use to talk about the pumpkin before handling the pumpkin appropriately to judge sound or touch or the like.  I have a small container of pumpkin seeds and pumpkin guts with napkins for students to assess taste if they choose rather than licking the pumpkin.

5 Little Pumpkin Rebus Reading 
Rebus is the art of using pictures to represent words.  As pre-k is filled with pre-readers, we do not expect for our students to come to us ready to read at the beginning of the school year.  We can start teaching them decoding skills with rebus charts.  Allow students to attempt deciphering the rebus chart before you read it to them, echo it with them, and read it together.

There Was An Old Lady Who Swallowed a Bat retelling with props. 
The old lady is back!  Remember to allow students to take time and discuss what items they believe she will eat this time before reading the book title.  In the book about her swallowing leaves, she created a scarecrow with the items that she ate.  What will happen with the things that she eats this time?

Candy Corn Writing "Have a _____ Halloween"
Here's another fun graphic organizer that will take shape.  So create a large candy corn cut out.  The top reads "Have a", the second section remains empty, and the bottom reads "Halloween".  Students suggest various words to fill in the blank and you write them all in.