Why is literacy important? Learners need literacy in order to engage with the written word in everyday life… Being able to read and write means being able to keep up with current events, communicate effectively, and understand the issues that are shaping our world.
- Today’s literary skill: Seasonal terms. Given any calendar showing days of the week/months of the year is an important planning skill for personal and family schedules… Ask them to practice reading the various terms from the slide above.
- Making the family connection: Discuss: “How does a calendar represent the value of time ?” (day/month). Practice reciting the months of the year and days of the week.
- Materials: family learning journals/paper, pencils, colored pencils, and/or crayons. Remind them to open their journals to the next available page and date it. Don’t forget to have them label the top of the page with today’s learning topic/skill.
- Next: Every learner needs to know the order of the months in a yearly calendar, including the holidays that are celebrated within the United States. Every learner needs to know the days of the week. With that in mind, how well can your family members write the months of the year or the names of the days in a week? In their journals, use the slide above for spelling practice until they can write these names without errors. For the days of the week, the most common errors are: Tuesday, Thursday, Friday, and Saturday. For the months of the year, the most common errors are: January, February, July, August, and November.
- Finally: Using the four season pictures on the right of the slide, invite them to describe and write a sentence about each scene (use the weather terms in their sentence). Younger members can illustrate their own picture, while someone transcribes their sentence.
