This ongoing class is all about playing with letters and words while exploring how they behave!🥳

Phonemic and Phonological Awareness are big words in the world of literacy that focus on being able to recognize and manipulate sounds - including both units of sounds and individual sounds within words. There is a growing library of research that emphasizes how the ability to distinguish and manipulate sounds is an important indicator for reading success. This class does not focus on letter recognition or letter names. 

This class will use play-based, hands-on activities to practice skills such as identifying beginning and ending phonemes, rhyming, syllables, alliteration, manipulating phonemes and segmenting and blending phonemes.

In each class, we will:
1. Introduce ourselves and answer a silly ice breaker question.👋
2. Sing a silly name song that practices rhyming.🎵
3. Sing a phonetic alphabet song.🎵
4. Introduce that week's focused example through teacher demonstration.👩‍🏫
5. Game or activity that will provide both group practice and individual practice.🎲

Here is the class schedule:

Week of February 26: Compound Words
✔ Find the Secret Words
Week of March 4: Alliteration
✔ Alliteration Ice Cream Cones
Week of March 11: Onset-Rime
✔ Construction Zone Board Game
Week of March 18: Beginning Sounds
✔There Was an Old Lady Who Swallowed a Sound Activity
Week of March 25: Ending Sounds
✔Match the Ending Sound Activity
Week of April 1: Middle Sounds - Short Vowels
✔Vowel Houses
Week of April 8: Middle Sounds - Long Vowels
✔Middle Sound Match Up Ice Cream Cones
Week of April 15: Blending Sounds
Week of April 22: Segmenting Sounds
Week of April 29: Adding Sounds
Week of May 6: No class
Week of May 13: Deleting Sounds
Week of May 20: Substituting Sounds

Activities will be included in the class schedule as the class progresses.

👂This class relies heavily on flexing our listening muscles. It is important for learners to have a quiet space to participate so that all learners can hear the class. Ideally, all learners will be able to stay unmuted the entire time. However, I understand that sometimes that is difficult. If your learner's environment is noisy, I will need to mute them and then have them unmute during class so they can also have a turn to speak.