Its Time

It's Time!
by Kathleen W. Deady
Pictures by Jill Newton

It's Time! works well as both a read aloud for general story time and as an easy reader for kindergarten and early elementary children. It
can be used in general units on animals and farms, and connects to many areas of the curriculum, including language, science, and math.

This page offers a variety of connections
to general themes, as well as activities and reproducibles for your use. I have tried to present them in a quick reference, easy-to-use layout.
I have also included links to outside websites for further activities that you may find helpful.

         I enjoy feedback, so email me and let me know if you find this page useful.
       And feel free to offer other ideas and suggestions for improvements, or share
       with me fun ways you have used It's Time! in your classroom or home.

Enjoy!
Kathy

Language Arts Support

It's Time! offers many possibilities for language activities to support both pre-reading and early reading skills. These include beginning and ending sounds, vowels sounds, rhyming words, vocabulary, comprehension, grammar, punctuation, and capitalization.

Suggestion: Make a "big book" (or in this case a
"big chart") version of the text for use with
group activities after initial reading

Print out the text of It's Time! on large story paper.
Separate between the stanza from each double page
spread in the book. Laminate for durability and reuse
with a variety of language activities.

Vocabulary:

The vocabulary in It's Time! is mostly at the
kindergarten and first grade level, and is well within
the early reading skills level. A smaller number of words offer a bit more challenge, but are easily learned as sight words through visual and contextual clues, as well
as the variety of activities presented here.

Suggestion: Make sight words cards for use with a
variety of basic vocabulary activities and games
Sight Word Cards ( Caps)
Sight Word Cards (Lowercase)
(Note: When printing out these and other worksheets below, set margins at .5" for best results)
Print out sight words. Cut extra paper outside box.
Laminate for durability. For extra strength, mount on oak tag first. Cut words apart along lines. Make duplicate set for concentration games, etc.

Introducing It's Time
Look at the cover.
What kind of animals are
on the cover?
Where does the story take place?

Read It's Time
As you read the story, children will quickly be drawn in by the repetition and rhythm. Rhyming words will help them in anticipating what is coming next, they will quickly be participating in reading the story

Follow up Discussions
Do you think this story is real or pretend? (Fiction or nonfiction)
How do you know? (Animals don't talk, sheep don't have flowers, etc.)

What order they appeared in the story? Which animal did we see first,
which was next, etc.

Real Farm Animal Sounds:
How do animals really sound? Listen
to recordings or real farm animals
and have them identify the animals.

Animal Sounds
Match the animal to the sound he
makes

Sequencing
Connect the animals in the order they
appeared in the story

Retelling the story

Have children retell the story, either through a puppet show, or acting it out

Puppet show

Acting out story

Favorite Animal

Talk about the animals
in the story.
Did you have a favorite? Why?

Do a favorite animal graph.
Which animal was the favorite and got the most votes? How many?
Which was the least favorite and got the fewest votes. How Many?

Favorite Animal Graph:
Print out favorite Animal Graph,
cut small squares of colored paper, have children record their vote on
the graph for their favorite animal
or
Human Graph--place the sight words on the floor, have children vote for their favorite by lining up behind the name of their favorite animal

Favorite Animal Graph

Farm or Zoo?
Discuss/ compare farm animals and zoo animals. Farm animals are tame, Zoo animals are wild

Find animal picture in magazines,
sort by whether they live on
a farm or in the zoo

On the Farm or at the Zoo?

Families

Talk about adult animals, males and females

Baby animals

Matching activities: a matching animals families members-male, female, baby

Animal Babies on the Farm

males/females

Barnyard babies
Use the code to learn the name of the baby, then match the baby to its mother

Animal groups

Most farms have more than one of every animal. Discuss the words used for groups of animals (herd, flock, etc.

Matching animal to group name
Counting 1-5
Counting 6-10
Addition
Subtraction

What do farms do for us?
Some animals give us food, others helps with difficult work. Talk about different animals, what they do for us, what we get from them.

Match the animal to the product we get from them
(Cow/ milk and meet, Chicken/eggs
and meet, Sheep/wool and meat)

Talk about farms in general
What kinds of buildings are on farms?
Where do the animals live?
Compare day (outside pen, pastures, etc.) with night (Barn, stall, coop)

Let's make a map.
Have children create a wall map
of the farm in It's Time! Include
the barn, the pigs pen, trees and fields, the pond and tree where
the duck and his friends
were, the gate, etc. And of
course the animals!

3-D Farm
Have children build a 3-d model of
the farm to display on a table. Use
a variety of materials, including
small boxes far buildings,
popsicle sticks for fences, etc

Rhyming
Talk about words that sound the same, or rhyme. Give them a few examples. Can you think of a word that rhymes with cat? How about bed?

Using the "big book" version, reread It's Time! Have children "read" with you, listen carefully and raise their hand if they hear words that rhyme. Use a washable marker to circle rhyming words, or have children circle.

Hearing Rhymes 1 (pictures)

Hearing Rhymes 2 (pictures)

Rhyming Words

Beginning sounds

After reading story, introduce beginning sounds.

Preliminary: Print out and laminate picture and letter cards provided (or make letter cards, and use pictures cut from magazines.) For additional farm words beyond those in books, use additional farm picture words.

Introduce beginning sounds. Have children say the name of the picture. What letter is making that sound?

Place letter cards in front of children. Sort pictures by the letter that makes the beginning sound.

Use picture cards for memory/concentration games. Introduce in group. Put game in activity center for independent use.

Picture Cards
(barn, cat, cow, dog, door, duck, gate, hen, pig, puppies)
Letter Cards
(beginning sounds include b, c, d, g, h, p)

Additional farm pictures
(Include donkey, goat, horse, rooster, and turkey)

Additional letters
(beginning sounds include r and t)

Beginning sounds worksheet (b c d)
Beginning sounds worksheet (g h p)

Vowels
All five short vowel sound are represented in the vocabulary words. Picture cards include cat, hen, pig, dog and duck.

Print out and laminate short vowel sound cards provided. or make your own using index cards

short vowel sound cards

Hearing Short Vowel Sounds (a)
Hearing Short Vowel Sounds (e)
Hearing Short Vowel Sounds (i)
Hearing Short Vowel Sounds (o)
Hearing Short Vowel Sounds (u)

Identifying Short vowels (Mixed)
(say the name of the picture, match to the vowels that is making the sound)

Hearing Long Vowels (Pictures)

Long Vowel Words (mixed)
Long Vowel Words (e)
Long Vowels (word scramble)

Vocabulary

To reinforce sight words, use picture cards and matching sight word cards

Use duplicate sets of sight word cards for memory/concentration games. (words used, and number of words can vary according to level of group) Introduce in group, later put game in activity enter for independent use.

Vocabulary match 1
Vocabulary match 2

contractions

Verbs
Talk about verbs, explain how they are words that show action. Give some examples.

Talk about words the author used instead of the word said. Read the story together from the chart. Have children listen for words the author used instead of said.

Have children find verbs in the story. If using the "big book" have children circle with marker. I working from books, have reading group write verbs they find on paper.

Write verbs on index cards in present tense (sight word cards from story are past tense). Play verb charades, having children take turns picking a card and acting out, allowing other children to guess the verb. (Suggestion: Use only verbs that can be more easily acted out, such as cheer, yawn, run, tell, hurry, lean, peek, step)

Verbs
(read the words in each row
and circle the verb)

Vocabulary
(words used instead of said)

Capitalization and Punctuation

It's Time! uses a variety of punctuation. There are lots of ways
to introduce the children not only to capitalization, but also punctuation, including periods, commas, question marks, exclamation points, and quotation marks.

Are your children learning to
capitalize and use punctuation?
Here are some worksheets
that relate to what they are
reading in the story that will
help them practice.

Capitalization

Punctuation (Using Periods)
Punctuation (Using Question Marks)
Punctuation (writing questions)
Punctuation (Using Commas)
Punctuation (Using Exclamation Points)
Punctuation (Using Quotation Marks)