May 26-28

Labeling Our Farm

We continued our Project Approach explorations this week by creating labels or "signs" for each part of the farm so that visitors are clear about what they are looking at. The children are very proud of the farm that they built over the past few weeks, and this final stage was an exciting one!

We started by matching farm items and animals to their corresponding pictures. Matching a printed word (the label) to a picture helps children recognize that those letters on the page have a specific, unchanging meaning. And, seeing both a visual image and a text label significantly increases how well a child remembers a new word. This is something we do often in preschool in order to expose the children to words and labels.

After we matched the labels and pictures, we discussed labeling our farm. Anyone who comes to see the farm will need to know what they are looking at, so "signs" were important to create. As the children verbally identified each structure on the farm, we wrote the label. They then took a sentence strip and copied the label that would then be added as a "sign" on the farm.

When a child moves from matching a pre-made label to copying one, they are moving into the imitative phase of literacy. This is the emergent/pre-reading and pre-writing stage where children mimic the behaviors of the readers and writers they see around them. When children copy a label, they are learning that writing has a direction and a sequence. When they match a label, they see the word as a whole shape. When they copy the label, they have to look at every single letter individually to replicate it. This forced attention to detail helps the brain "map" the spelling of the word much more deeply than just looking at it. By copying the label and placing it on their creation, they are showing that their creation is "real" enough to have a name. All of the children worked together to label each of their creations, giving them each the role of writer as well as builder and creator.