Read at Home Book
Cut 9” x 12” sheets of construction paper in half. Let each child choose 4 or 5 different colors and staple them together to make a book. Write “I Can Read” on the front and let the children decorate with their name and picture. Send the book home with a note to the parents about helping their child recognize different logos, signs, and words on products and in the home and as they drive down the road. Encourage parents to help their child cut out words they can read from boxes, magazines, and advertisements. Ask children to bring their books back to school to “read” with classmates.
I Like
On Monday send home a sandwich bag with a note asking parents to help their child look for words she can read on food labels, toys, advertisements, and other products around their house. Children cut these out and bring them to school Friday in the sandwich bag. On Friday, encourage the children to “read” the labels that they have brought to class. Write the words “I” and “like” on index cards for each child. Model how to place the cards on the floor with a label from their bag. Point to the words as you read, “I like logo.” Ask the child to read it for you as you point to each word. Comment, “Look at you reading!!!!”
*Put a small piece of magnetic tape on the back of index cards and logos and send home as a reading activity for children to do on their refrigerators with parents.
Traffic Signs
If you use “google images” you can download traffic signs that children will be familiar with. You can make memory games or lotto games with the signs.
*Let children glue signs to paper towel rolls to use in the block center.
Shopping Mall
Cut store logos from Sunday advertisements. Tape to wooden blocks and make your own mall in the block center.
This website (hubbardscupboard.org) has fantastic ideas for using environmental print. You’ll even find several pages of foods, restaurants, and household products to download.
