1 I haven't seen the actual Lucy curriculum book/lessons--can I get a copy for what you guys did today? I'd love to see that!
So I pick and choose some of the things that are in the books. It wants you to usually follow the “teaching point” and then gives lots of options to go about it. I emailed some pages that go over some of the things I did
I also usually go back and forth One day I’ll dedicate a lesson to learning vowels/what vowels are used for, for example, and the next day I’ll introduce a letter/snap word
Here’s a link to a scan of the Lucy Calkins lesson/curriculum book
2. Is this an introduction to the letter/letter sound? Are there follow up lessons to strengthen the knowledge/follow up and review?
So the beginning of Lucy Calkins (kindergarten) is a mixture of learning the letters and letter sounds and also a mix of other lessons The lessons that aren’t introducing letters usually reinforce letter identification and sounds (examples: studying the letters in our name, looking for letters in the classroom, labeling the classroom by stretching out all the sounds in a word, etc ) Here’s a picture of the title of each lesson
Later on in the year, we continue to reinforce the letters when we introduce snap words that are phonetic and blends. Then we focus on digraphs and long vowel sounds near the end of the year
They also get reinforced a lot through the Lucy Calkins reading and writing curriculum which is nice They focus a lot on sounding out letters and stretching out words to identify all the sounds when writing.
3 Are the handwriting sheets/coloring sheets part of Lucy or extensions? With those do you go over them with the students later or check them in some way to determine if they are forming letters properly/recognizing corresponding sounds? Basically are they ever "graded' or tracked for progress?
So, Lucy Calkins provides these cards that teach kids how to write and then she wants you to write them in the air (I think I put these in the email I sent you?). I tried that last year and it didn’t seem to stick, so I wanted to have them actually practice writing
Here’s a link to what the writing sheet for Lucy Calkins looks like.
I get a lot of my writing from TPT Last year I made them, but it took way too long and I never saved them. I also have some resources like the poster in the back that talks about “giraffe” letters and “monkey tail letters” (see below) I found last year that students got confused on which letters to start at the top and which ones to start on the dotted line
I think I might change this, though, since I remember from my student teaching that Fundations has a nice writing system that uses “ground” “airplane” (see a pic I found below)...I know Jessica and Bernadette use this, too, so that’s great for consistency
Right now, I just have them write and take them home Around report cards, I give them a sheet with all the letters uppercase and lowercase so I can use that to help “grade” and inform parents of letters to practice I also do a letter identification and letter sound identification assessment that I tell Jessica, Megan, etc and parents to practice
I also do Writing Portfolios where I keep their writing throughout the year, so I look through that to track progress. Then send home at the end of the year so the parents can see how much they’ve grown!
Sometimes I will take pictures (for documentation) of some students’ work that I think need extra support That way I can show Jessica or whoever would be working with them
4. You mentioned it was their last letter--does Lucy Calkins set the order for phonemic instruction?
Yep! See below:
5 Also just wanted to say I loved the sign language inclusion and the little signal for "i agree"--I love that instead of shouting out "Me too!", we might try that!
Thanks! Wanted to do it because of Parker but I might keep it for the following years!
6. At some point it would be awesome to see the curriculum for this specifically and see how we can bring it down to PK for some more exposure
You’re welcome to look through all my books. I have them behind my desk in book bins. Just take them whenever :) I can also send more online resources if you’re looking for anything specific!