For this project, my partner, Gabby,  and I have come up with a Mini Unit to help students engage with the book The Cat in the Hat by Dr. Seuss. Our intended age range for this Mini Unit is Kindergarten. This mini-unit will include a word family worksheet as well as a coloring aspect to keep the student’s imaginations in touch. Important aspects of this unit are reading and writing with the ability to recognize patterns. These aspects will cater to students who are visual-spatial, linguistic-verbal and musical learners. Our students are at different levels of English Proficiency, giving them the opportunity to talk out loud is important. Students will listen to a fun story while learning an educational lesson on word families and use color to bring the story to life.

Our goal for this mini-unit is to create the perfect tool for a Kindergarten teacher. The objective is to have students gain recognition for the wordplay and rhymes used in the work of Dr. Seuss. We also want students to be able to identify and produce rhyming patterns and word families. This will help visual learners engage in visual arts, musical learners work with patterns and linguistic learners to verbally communicate and build word families out loud. This tool will help teachers keep their students involved and interested.

At this point in the project, we have decided we will have a word family worksheet to go along with the book as well as a class coloring activity. Going forward, it is now important we create a timeline for teachers to follow and decide on the exact worksheet that will be used. Having a timeline will allow teachers to set goals and make sure they accomplish what they need in order for students to fully understand the book. 

Dr. Seuss creates very colorful and exciting stories that children enjoy. It was important to us that we chose a book that children would be enthusiastic to read. An important part of kindergarten is learning new words and how to spell. Dr. Seuss helps students achieve these skills through an artistic and amusing way. We have created this so teachers can have a fun and colorful way to teach their students about word families.

Brunaccioni, J. (2019). Dr. Seuss Mini-Unit. Retrieved from https://www.scholastic.com/teachers/unit-plans/teaching-content/dr-seuss-mini-unit/.

This entry cites academic sources and is a credible source because the date is recent enough for its purpose as it was published in 2019. There is a listed author which is another good indication of reliable information that the author is willing to stand behind the information presented. This site includes objectives for this personalized lesson, as well as an activity and lesson plan. This allowed us to understand what sort of aspects we wanted to stick by and what skills were necessary. 

Adams, K. (2014, September 2). The Cat in The Hat. Retrieved from

https://betterlesson.com/lesson/582936/the-cat-in-the-hat.

This entry cites academic sources and is a credible source because the date is recent enough for its purpose as it was published in 2019. The site included warm-ups, activities, reading the story, and fun activities to help engage students. This site was a good beginning source of how to start off and create our own unit/ lesson plan. It allowed us to observe other teachers’ focuses on the same book. 

Mascle, D. (n.d.). Word Families. Retrieved from

https://primary123abc.weebly.com/word-families.html.

This website seemed to have been a credible source as it was more of a blog post. As stated before the author states their name and stands by their work and information written. This source helped us better understand the use and importance of word families. It also highlights the importance of patterns, allowing for students to easily sound words out. The exposure of word families increases the students’ efficiency.