Do you need some new literacy ideas for the month of February, specifically for letters and words? Well, I’m super excited to share some extra fun activities with you!
February is full of fun themes, including Valentine’s Day and Dental Health Month. Today, I’m focusing on those two themes for these February literacy ideas.
Dental Health Month Literacy Ideas
First up: Toothbrushes!
Around here, February is definitely still the middle of winter. As a result, we’re still doing all things SNOW. So, grab these fake snow containers again and use them with new tools, toothbrushes! Instead of using bottle brush trees to practice writing words, students can use toothbrushes to make words. (You can usually buy a pack of 8-10 for a pretty good deal and they *should* last year after year!)
Students can pick a sight word card and a toothbrush. Then they will use the toothbrush to write the selected word in the fake snow.
When reading dental health themed books, you can also focus on word patterns. You can have students identify the word patterns and then write those word patterns in their fake snow. For example, after reading the word ‘tooth’, ask students which sound they hear at the end: “th”.
The toothbrushes also work well as reading pointers! You can use one during a read aloud when you highlight words in the text to discuss. Students can also use the toothbrushes as pointers while they are reading on their own.
Valentine's Day Literacy Ideas
Find letters from the story!
Make a fun sensory bin with colorful letters. Again, since it’s still winter here, these pom pom snowballs work great for this. Add in a fun grabbing tool and ask students to grab a letter that matches the beginning sound of a word from the text. This can be done when referring back to a read aloud text or individual guided reading stories.
As a follow up, students can then actually find all the letters needed to make different words from the story. These may be simple CVC words, or something more challenging that uses various phonics patterns that are a focus.
Word Work Idea
For this activity, I grabbed smelly markers, notecards and stickers (tie dye hearts for the Valentine’s Day theme!).
Pick words your readers are working on, then have them write the words on the notecards. Or, you can write the words, prior to the activity.
Students then lay the cards out in front of them. You say one of the words, the students find it. She then places a sticker on that card. Next, the student traces the letters of the words, saying each letter as she traces it. Last, the student repeats the word.
This continues until all the words have been read. This helps when working on spelling words, sight words, phonics patterns, etc!
Valentine's Day Stories
Last, but not, least…
Add in all the Valentine’s stories into your read aloud rotation! This is a simple one, but really kids LOVE themed books. I keep adding more to my collection, so please let me know if you have any favorites.
This graphic organizer is a great one to use this month when focusing on characters in your Valentine’s Day themed read alouds. Grab the FREE graphic organizers here!
Stories Students Can Read on Their Own
If you need some fun digital stories to use with students, all about Valentine’s Day, these Digital I am a Reader passages are perfect!
Students love the themed stories and the animated themed gif that celebrates them as a reader.
You can grab this resource here!
More Literacy Ideas
I’m always trying to come up with new ideas and love sharing them here. I just think it’s so important to practice letter recognition and word study skills in a variety of ways, all of which are engaging. Here are a few more blog posts you might like:
February Literacy Engagement Ideas
2 Responses
Is it possible for you to send the fake snow recipe? I must have missed it.
Thank you!
Simona Feldman
Hi Simona,
I actually bought mine on Amazon- if you search fake snow or sparkling snow it should pop up. Here’s the one I got: https://www.amazon.com/Beistle-20019-Sparkling-Snow-2-Ounce/dp/B00DKAAK3E/ref=sr_1_13?dchild=1&keywords=fake+snow&qid=1613503187&sr=8-13
Hope that helps!
Aylin