This week we read Pete the Cat: I Love My White Shoes. Students were given a cut out of Pete the Cat to encourage pretend play as suggested in the article Children's Context for Development by Klein, Wirth, and Linas. This girl was putting fences around the colors on the carpet to keep Pete from getting his shoes all dirty like he does in the book when he steps in the strawberries and other colorful items.
Integrating literacy into play can be a powerful way of engaging children and fostering oral language development alongside basic literacy skills. This is a great book that lends itself to a lot of play, as well. Keep us posted as to how you use Pete the Cat to create playful learning opportunities.
ReplyDeleteI love when a favorite book pops up in students' minds throughout the day. This happened with my scholars this past week surrounding Peter and Willie, from "Whistle for Willie." We are currently doing an author study on Ezra Jack Keats and my scholars are completely in love with Willie and Peter. So, while scholars were making "noun cubes" in the writing center to roll to choose a noun to write about, I found one of my scholars chose to put Willie and Peter on their noun cube, and proceeded to write sentences about each. It was so nice to see him making connections--that WIllie and Peter are nouns because they are people/things, instead of the expected, cat, dog, house, etc.
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