Paula's Primary Classroom: Letter E (part two)

About ten years ago I attended a training by Janet Chambers, a teacher-author who shared wonderful ideas about teaching literacy. One of her ideas that really stuck with me was that of a "big event" to introduce each letter of the alphabet. Ever since, we've had an alphabet worth of big events here at school each year. (See her book, Ready, Set, READ here.)

For the letter E, I've put together a small Easter basket of plastic eggs, each with something that begins with the letter e: envelope, Elmo, toy eggs, elephants - and some that are empty. The kiddos LOVE it!

I also took two groups of children to the zoo, to see the elephants (and of course, other animals.)

I have to admit, I was surprised that the children had an idea in mind for the letter E, and were quite insistent that we do their activity: an Easter egg hunt. I certainly didn't mind, I had that in mind myself, but I think it says something about the relevance of the activity, that the children who reviewed E with egg hunts last April remember it, and wanted to revisit it. Not for candy, our eggs were empty every time except for our Good Friday egg hunt. They loved the hiding and the seeking. Needless to say, I dug out 6 dozen eggs, some baskets, buckets from the sandbox, and we had at it!