SWAP

It is time for some product swapping brought to you by...

I had the wonderful opportunity to be paired with Mrs. Brinn from

I used her Alphabet Vacation.  This activity was great.  There are many different ways you can use it.  You can have the kids bring in items (the way in which it was created), bring in items yourself OR make it a treasure hunt!  <-- This is what I did.

Her product comes with a great letter you can send home to parents telling them what is going to be happening in class and asking them to participate.

I was not sure how it would work out in my tiny room with each kid bringing in a suitcase, so I improvised!  Gotta love that!  Her activity lends itself so easily to an alphabet treasure hunt.

So, when the kids came to school the Monday after we finished learning the first twenty-six phonograms, our alphabet was missing and this is what we found:

Of course we needed them!  How could we continue learning without them?!  So, the hunt began!
As we go through our alphabet a the second time, we are focusing on isolating sounds.  Each day we review a new sound.  Each day we need to hunt for our review phonogram.  How else will we be able to learn more about/with the phonogram if our alphabet is on vaca?!
I tried to find places around campus or in our room that begin with that phonogram.  For example, the first sound we needed was /t/. 

When we were reviewing /l/, we found that tricky phonogram in the library.

Since our adventurous letters packed up and headed out for some R&R, we had to get our passports ready.  Each kiddo is responsible for getting five 'stamps' on his/her passport.  Sometimes we find phonograms as a class and sometimes we find them as a small group.  Once, there there was a sneaky letter in someone's backpack - sneaky /r/ found her way into the backpack of a girl whose name begins with that sound.

This week a group of kiddos found the /p/ vacationing on the playground!

As we were searching, we found /p/ and a cup full of /p/ stamps.

Whenever we find one of our vacationing letters, we glue them in our passport.  I had also considered printing them onto labels since Mrs. Brinn's template is perfect for that, but I thought we could use more experiences with glue.

Since this is only our first week reviewing the letters, we still have lots more to find.  I plan on getting very creative... think props!  I will be sure to post more pics and keep you updated!

The kiddos love this activity and look forward to going on adventures every day.  This has really helped motivate them to go through the alphabet a second time.

Be sure to check out Mrs. Brinn's page and hear her take on the Alphabet Vacation!