Language Experience Stories {Get Ready for K Through Play}

Starting Kindergarten can be both fun and overwhelming for kids {and parents!}  To help make the transition as smooth as possible a bunch of kid bloggers and educators have teamed up to bring you Get Ready for K Through PLAY! 

During this weekly summer series we will be sharing simple, hands on learning activities that will help your child develop the kindergarten readiness skills they need in a FUN and playful way.  We’re kicking things off this week with language activities!

     Thank you to My Cute Graphics for the use of this superhero kids graphic.

A language experience story is one of my favorite activities to help primary age students build language skills.  I used to do them all of the time when I was a teacher and with my older daughter.  The best thing about language experience stories is that they are naturally motivating and can be done after any type of shared experience–no special supplies needed!

How to Create a Language Experience Story:

1.  Create a shared experience.  We exploded a bar of Ivory soap in the microwave, but you can go blueberry picking, start a campfire, make homemade jam, anything that would be interesting or novel for your child.

2.  Prompt and encourage conversation during the shared experience to help your child remember what happened.  Incorporate your senses into the experience.  Talk about how it smells, feels, etc.  Discuss their feelings about the activity and note anything particularly exciting or memorable.  Paying attention to these types of details during the experience helps you child develop observation, comprehension, and oral expression skills that are important in school.

3. Gather supplies to write the story.  I like to use large chart paper, but poster board, craft paper, construction paper or whatever you have on hand will work.

4.  Have your child recount the shared experience to you and record their words on the paper.  Use proper mechanics when writing, but record your child’s sentences word for word even if they are not grammatically correct.  It is more important for your child to feel ownership of his or her words and experience than it is to have a perfect sentence.  You can prompt them a little if necessary, but don’t worry about it being comprehensive at first.  Make sure they create a title for their story too.

5.  Read the language experience story aloud.  Do this more than once and encourage your child to join in and read any words he or she already knows.  At this point you can do any editing/revising that they request to get the story the way they like it.

Ivory Soap Explosion Language Experience Story

Exploding a bar of Ivory soap in the microwave is a super easy, hands on activity for a language experience story. We began by exploring what the bar was like when we unwrapped it–how it felt, what it smelled like, how heavy it was, what it looked it, etc.

Then we cut the bar in half and set it on a wooden cutting board and placed it in the microwave.  We set the timer for 2 minutes and watched it “explode” in the microwave!

While we waited for it to cool, we made some observations about what it looked like after the explosion. Then the kids dove in to explore how it felt and smelled. 

After they had played with it for awhile it was time to grab our chart paper and record our story.  We have done language experience stories before so my 5 year old was ready to tell me what we had done with just a little bit of prompting.  You may need to say things like, What happened after that?, the first couple of times you write one.

When the language experience story was finished I read it to them and then we took a turn reading it together.  My 5 year old joined in with the words he knew and soon was able to read it all by himself.  Since they were his words and his experience he had all of the background knowledge he needed to figure out the words he didn’t know (even ones that are still too hard for him to read in isolation.)

But even more importantly he was able to have fun using language to narrate the exploding soap experience!  Narrating a personal experience and sharing ideas using complete sentences are important Kindergarten language skills and practicing them in a fun and playful way in the summer helps build the confidence needed to take chances in the classroom.

 Thank you to My Cute Graphics for the use of this superhero kids graphic.

 Creating a language experience story it just one way to build the language skills needed for Kindergarten.

  Check out the Kindergarten readiness activities shared by the other Get Ready for K through PLAY! hosts:

Developing Kindergarten Language Skills from Mom to 2 Posh Lil Divas

Create a Story Box with Free Printables from Mess for Less

Using Puppets for Language Development from Toddler Approved

Play to Promote Language Development from Mama Smiles

Next week we’ll all be back sharing activities to develop social and emotional skills!

In the meantime be sure to follow our Get Ready for K Through PLAY! Pinterest Board for a huge collection of Kindergarten readiness activities!