Phonemes, Come Get the Phone! Who’s Calling?

The unit, “Phonemes, Come get the phone!” is a cross curricular unit designed to be used in a full day kindergarten class. The areas of curriculum covered in this unit are: reading, writing, geography, social studies and math. Reading instruction coupled with writing activities are especially focused upon in the unit with regards to phonemic awareness and phonics.

The usefulness of the activities in the unit will be apparent to the reader. While strengthening the student’s fine motor skills, they will create a map of the world clearly showing the continent’s geographic borders. While each child views her name in a scrambled way, she sees the place value of her first letter, thus introducing place value as a concept. Writing a book that shows the child’s appreciation of the alphabet and demonstrating skill in writing sentences makes for a meaningful project for grades K to 3.

The choice of three wonderful authors as vehicles for learning are: Bill Peet, Dr. Seuss, and E.B. White. Each of these authors provide a broad range of interest for children and a real help in developing children’s listening skills.

The art of Seuss and Peet are uniquely engaging to the young reader. E.B. White’s Charlotte’s Web is a masterfully rendered example of story telling at its finest. Listening to this story during the kindergarten year assists the children to hold in their imagination the ideas set forth from day to day. As it is a long book in kindergarten terms, each chapter ends with a cliff-hanger, urging the listeners to beg for more. These three authors have an honored place as supplement to the already rich core curriculum the Philadelphia School District uses.