This post has a free printable for emergent readers, Candy Cane Lane Rhyme Game. This printable could accompany Father Fox’s Christmas Rhymes. This book was written and illustrated by Wendy Watson. Other Christmas rhymes could be read, instead.
This is a poetry about the Christmas season. The pictures all have foxes in them, but capture the feelings and happiness of the season. Some of the poems are about winter, also.
“Secret things in secret places, whispered words and knowing faces . . .”
The poetry is beautiful with how we tell children to write, with showing sentences and not telling sentences. This would be a good book to use with the 6+1 Traits of Writing for discussing showing sentences, such as: “Paper rustles, scissors snip, a telltale wink and finger to the lip!”
Candy Cane Rhyme Game
Because it has rhyming in it, I made a free-candy-lane–rhyming-game-2-levels PDF, opens right here
There are word cards to print, cut apart, and laminate for longer use.
There are also “clue” cards.
And a gameboard.
The two different levels of difficulty will help with differentiation in the classroom. The season may begin with using the more emergent level, and moving on to the more independent level as the students become familiar with the game and words. As the children hear and see seasonal words in and out of school, they will be more able to read and write them.
Thank you for reading, Carolyn
