By Michelle Rist Created by Michelle Rist @ InspiredByKindergarten.blogspot.com
In my classroom we explain the handwriting house as a house where a Zookeeper lives. When his animal/letter friends come for a visit he only lets special animals into different parts of his house. Here is a visual of how I explain the zookeeper s house: Attic: There are mice that live in the zookeeper s attic. The letters are all scared of the mice so they ALL stay out of the attic. NOTE: I don t draw the extra attic lines every time it is only drawn on the day the house is explained. Ceiling 2nd Floor: Some animals are allowed to come upstairs. They are called giraffe letters. They are super tall and their heads touch the ceiling! (b, d, f, h, k, l, t) Steps 1st Floor: Some animals have to stay on the 1st floor because they can t climb the red steps (their legs are too short!) We call these the turtle letters. (a, c, e, i, m, n, o, r, s, u, v, w, x, z) Floor Basement: A snake lives in the basement. Some letters hang out on the first floor with the turtles but they aren t scared of the snake so they like to drop their tail down to say hi to the snake. We call these letter our brave monkey letters. (g, j, p, q, y) CAPITAL LETTERS: All capital letters are known as gorilla letters because they are Large and In Charge! They take up the whole house top to bottom but they don t like the mice or the snake so they stay away from those areas!
Here are some of the different ways I use these animals as handwriting visuals: *I print several of each animal onto cardstock, laminate them and put a magnet on the back. They are always on my board so that when we talk about how to draw a letter we can grab the matching animal and put it in our house. The visual helps us remember where in the house our animal belongs & also where it s not allowed to go. (Note: I use colored electrical tape on my board to create my handwriting house. That way I don t have to draw my house every time I teach handwriting...it s just always there!) *We have 4 posters (giraffe, turtle, monkey & gorilla) on our wall. I die cut the letter we are learning and we sort it onto the correct poster. Now we can always look at the posters to remind ourselves which animal our letter is. *When we chant names or spelling words we will pretend to be the animals that match the letter and animalcise (sounds a lot more fun than exercise) to the word. Turtle: crouch a little and put your hands on your knees Giraffe: stand straight and tall with arms straight over your head Monkey: drop into a crouch and let your hands touch the floor Gorilla: make a muscle man pose *When we build words in our pocket chart we will put the matching animal beneath each letter. EX: I have found this visual to be a VERY powerful tool especially when teaching children about their own names! It also helps solidify the rule that ALL names start with a capital letter as kids soon realize that everyone s name starts with a gorilla letter! My Name in Animals is also an activity page included in this pack and is a great extension of the pocket chart activity. *****Please excuse the use of the different animal clipart in the pictures in this pack. I have used this method for years and have gone through many revisions of my animals and methods. Some of these pictures will show the current animals (in this pack) and some will be older pictures from when I used DJ Inkers animals. The concepts and ideas remain the same no matter what clipart I ve used! Thanks!
Overview of the pages in this packet: 1. Two posters of the house for you to laminate and hang as a reference (you can use both or whichever you feel your students will understand the best). Also a reference sheet for your writing center, students writing folders, journals, etc or just to hang on the wall for further references. 2. Story of the Zookeeper s House. The story explains each animals and why they have to stay in certain parts of the house. After reading the story we do the Handwriting Zoo Sort page together (included in this pack). 3. Pictures of each animal for you to print out and use during handwriting instruction. (You will not be able to resize these clip arts so I would suggest you create your handwriting house to the size of the these animals. Sorry...copyright rules!) 4. Poster headers. Cut out the header and glue to the top of a large piece of construction paper. Die cut each letter of the alphabet (capital and lowercase). As you teach each lesson sort the letter onto the correct poster. 5. Sorting pages for use in centers and some alphabet sets to cut, laminate & use with sorting. It s a good idea to expose children to many different types of fonts so as an extension activity I ve added a few pages of fancy fonts. 6. Worksheet sorting pages for independent practice/assessment. You can use the center alphabet pages that are in this packets or you can have your students stamp letters. They could also use the same cards you laminated for centers except when they pull out a letter they write the letter on their page instead of placing it in the box. A few other fun ideas would be to use letter craft punches or letter stickers. For more ideas and free activity to accompany this pack please visit my blog at: http://inspiredbykindergarten.blogspot.com/search/label/handwriting
The next 3 pages in the pack are reference posters.
A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z b d f h k l t g j p q y a c e i m n o r s u v w x z
Commonly asked question from my Kinders: What about the lowercase i and j? Shouldn t they both be giraffes? They go to the 2nd floor of the house! My answer: Nope! The i is a turtle holding a balloon and the j is a monkey holding a balloon. Aren t they lucky animals? It must be their birthday!
The next 8 pages contain The Handwriting Zoo story which I use to introduce the animals to the kids. I pause on each page and talk about the aspects of the house that we see. Before and after reading I always tie these animals back into the main purpose of the story: writing letters!
This is the Zookeeper friendly and kind who loves to bring his animal friends home all the time! Come and visit! He says. But stay in your place!
This is the Zookeeper s house colorful and small where all the animals come to play and have a ball! Come and visit! Says the Zookeeper. But stay in your place!
This is Capital gorilla who s LARGE and IN CHARGE. Ceiling to floor is his space in the house but the attic and basement are too crowded and small. Come and visit! Says the Zookeeper. But stay in your place!
This is Giraffe who s tall but that s all. His head goes way up and his feet touch the ground but he s scared of the mice and the snake- - he stays away from them all! Come and visit! Says the Zookeeper. But stay in your place!
This is Turtle who s short, slow and fun. He stays on the first floor because he can t climb the steps! Come and visit! Says the Zookeeper. But stay in your place!
This is Monkey who s silly and nice. See his tail dip down low and his hand grab the stairs? He gets into trouble when playing too high so he stays down low with turtle and snake. Come and visit! Says the Zookeeper. But stay in your place!
This is the Zookeeper s house colorful and small where all the animals come to play and have a ball! Come and visit! Says the Zookeeper. But stay in your place!
The next few pages are the animals to cut out, laminate and used as whole group visuals. These animals are scaled to fit in this reference poster: I tape this reference poster to a cookie sheet (or you could tape it to a wipe board anything magnetic.) I put magnets on the back of my animals so they stick to the reference page. Front of cookie sheet Back of cookie sheet As I introduce a new letter in handwriting I can write the letter on the laminated poster with a wipe board marker and then use my magnetic animals as a visual to show which animal the letter matches up to:
I suggest printing 2 of this page. Created by Michelle Rist @ InspiredByKindergarten.blogspot.com
A couple different Zookeepers you could use as extra visuals. Created by Michelle Rist @ InspiredByKindergarten.blogspot.com
The next 2 pages are the headers you can cut out and glue onto posters. As you introduce each letter during your handwriting time you can stick the letter onto the appropriate poster.
The next 9 pages are activities you can use for centers. Make copies of the sorting pages and laminate. There are also several pages of different fonts to cut out and laminate to be sorted. I wanted to include some letters for you but I do not use the letters in this pack. Instead, I use letters cut out of boxes of cereal, crackers, etc. These letters are more colorful and sturdy and come in a huge variety of fonts.
a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z Sorting cards for center page.
a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z Sorting cards for center page.
a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z Sorting cards for center page.
a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z Sorting cards for center page.
a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z Sorting cards for center page.
a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z Sorting cards for center page.
The rest of the packet includes independent practice pages.
Name M l b o y n R k p r S j
Name Cut and glue the letters into the correct box.
Cut and paste sheets for Crazy Zoo. I ve included 2 Different sorts so activity can be done more than once. A b c d e F H i j k l m N o p Q r s T u v w x z a B c d E f h i j k L m n o p Q R s T u v w x y z
Name Have either the teacher or the student write their name, a friend s name or other word they are working on here: Students cut animals out from other sheet & paste appropriate matching animal pictures here: Created by Michelle Rist @ InspiredByKindergarten.blogspot.com
Cut these animals out to use with What s My Name in Animals?. Each student only needs 1/2 a sheet. Created by Michelle Rist @ InspiredByKindergarten.blogspot.com