What Dreams are Made Of...

As some of us are wishing for snow, and others are wishing it would melt, Eric Carle’s “Snow Dreams” sounds fitting.  I know it talks about Christmas, but I think I’m just really hoping for a snowfall, so it seems fitting to me!  Your child will love the transparent pages that allow them to guess the animal.  Here are some suggestions:

LISTENING - Have your child make the noise of each animal as they become blanketed with snow.  The sentence “The snowflakes gently covered ____ with a white blanket.” is repeated several times.  After reading it through once, read it through again and change one of the words.  For example, say “The snowflakes gently caught ____ with a white blanket.”  Can your child guess the messed up word?  When you are reading the numbers in order, try saying a word that isn’t a number.  For example, say “One, Two, Fish, Four and Five.”  Can your child name the silly word?

RHYMING - How many words can your child come up with that rhyme with SNOW.  They can be nonsense words.  Can he/she make up a sentence using some rhyming words?  For example, “The SHOW stopped because of SNOW and I KNOW we have to GO.”

WORDS/SENTENCES - Give your child 9 blocks or 9 of any small item.  Read them the sentence “The snowflakes gently covered Three with a white blanket.”  Model pushing a block out for each word in the sentence.  Next, do it with your child as you guide his/her hands out for each word.  After several tries, can your child do it alone?

SYLLABLES - Have your child collect some nighttime things in a bad (toothbrush, teddy bear, blanket, etc.).  Pull the items out of the bag one by one and model the jaw activity to show that your mouth moves each time there’s a new syllable.  Can your child do that?

INITIAL/FINAL SOUNDS - How many words does your child hear that start with the same sound as SNOW?  Collect some items around the house that start with the same letter.  Try the same thing with snow’s last letter (W).

PHONEMES - Give your child several blocks for this activity.  Model pushing one out each time you hear a sound/phoneme in the story.  Or, have a jar of pretzels, peanuts, grapes, etc.  Have your child grab one each time they hear individual sounds.  Try some of these words: WITH (w-i-th), FELL (f-e-ll), ASLEEP (a-s-l-ee-p), SNOW (s-n-ow), MOON (m-oo-n), STAR (s-t-ar).

LETTERS/SPELLINGS - If you have snow, use it!  Don't you feel bad for the person above?!  If not, grab some shaving cream to create a pretend scene.  Help your child spell SNOW.  Underneath of it, drop the SN and put GR.  Drop the GR and add a THR.  Drop that beginning and add BL.  See if your child can think of anymore.  You can do the same for the word DREAM (steam, beam, treat, neat, beat, seat, etc.)

Hoping this brings a little snow my way J