May 29th- PLC (Active Exploration: Math)

PLC:  May 29, 2013

Lisa T., Brittany, Katrina, Jen

Brittany and Katrina took the suggestions made in our last meeting and implemented them into their math groups.  They were extremely impressed with the successes observed with their students. 

Katrina tried grouping math groups differently and keeping them consistent and working with the same teacher for the week.  She felt better with the learning and engagement going on and the students seemed more settled with the groupings.

Brittany made the lessons in her math group more individualized and is noticing greater success with her students.  She is also not focusing on one objective for a long period of time and students are excited for math because it is “fun”.

She is working towards a final project with fractions where the students will use fractions to create a pizza and then they will create their own individual pizza to eat.  Fun!

We discussed how well the PLC went this year went.  The ideas, conversations and projects that were discussed were engaging and exciting.  It was great to get a different perspective on activities and also to feel free to discuss successes and things that didn’t go well in a safe environment.  We look forward to continuing with this PLC format for next year.  

May 15- PLC (Active Exploration: Math)

Wednesday May 15 – PLC

We took a look at math activities that Katrina and Brittany tried with their math groups.  We discussed the task, the successes and challenges, suggestions for growth and the next steps that could be taken.

Katrina

-       Fractions to decimals challenge

-       ½ of the class is working on this challenge while the other is doing the Lego challenge in Learning Commons

-       Learning to say fractions, draw fractions on grid paper and then convert to a decimal

-       Relating it back to area and perimeter (previous lessons/sequencing)

-       Do the students have success with so much switching between groups and concepts?

-       They are continuing with lessons, but having a week break from new lessons is tricky

-       Having a lessons being taught by one teacher and then challenge being organized by another teacher… going back and forth can cause chaos in the classroom.

-       Can you plan an activity that takes all week? Creating extension for students.

-       Key to success is being able to follow up with students after lesson plans.

Brittany

-       Working on the foundations of fractions – anchor chart, review

-       Creating art with fractions. Writing our name and writing fractions. Ex. 2/5 letters are vowels.

-       Extending fractions into science. Creating a design on a plane using fractions. Ex. 3/10 of the plane must be grey, ½ of the page must be blue.

-       Current project, 2D and 3D shapes.

-       Began with iPads using geo-board. Review of lines and vertices.

-       Next step… creating shapes using marshmallows and toothpicks. Using iPads to explain sides and vertices.

-       Ability grouping is very successful

-       Interactive lessons using art, iPads and going outside allow students to feel successful

-       Cooking…. Great way to reinforce fractions!

What to do with kids who finish early?

-       Extension questions

Number of the Day

-       Give students a strip of paper with different numbers for them to complete until the end of the year

-       Switching up the chart using Post-It notes

Next PLC: 

-members will bring student work and discuss the successes/challenges of a new math task tried with students

ELL Boys & Their Use of the English Language

Bent: Has been working on speech with them all year. Used the iPad to work on hearing their speech. Has worked on readers' theatre with the students. Students were really connected to their characters, so they were more open to speak.

Authentic Student Work: Video of readers' theatre. Alexander & The Terrible, Horrible, Nogood Very Bad Day. The work was fluency, not on acting.

Observations:
(T) - Able to read and write, and listen, but his speaking is incomprehensible. Can't pronounce TH, T, K sounds. And he says 'D' for 'T'. Doesn't finish endings of words. "My mom was say" not "my mom was saying".

(R) - Only one that didn't get really into it, and so his fluency wasn't as good. Can't pronounce the 'F', can't say P, he says B. Real challenge, because he is too cool for school.

(J) - Super enthusiastic. Excited. Fluent and expressive. Good intonation. Animated.

Next Steps:
Choose a letter or letter combination with each of them that they are working on. Find words, have them read them. Show them how to say those words. Have them work on different letters.

Story Idea:
Students are given a picture from a David Wiesner book (interesting, picture-only fantasy book). They get to dictate a story, which then becomes a readers theatre that they will perform.

Next Time:
Tammy will share math with grade 5s.
Tammy will share (B) and (K)s work.
Tammy will share about her reading group with other grade 6s.
Mike will share something.
Claire is trying to work on numbers and letters with (D).

Sharing Student Work at All Levels

We looked at student work based on ideas and topics we discussed last month. Thibeau shared a video of her students doing an “awesome” math center that incorporates multiple levels of math operations work with physical activities. Her students were engaged in authentic learning and collaborated together to solve problems, while having fun (and body breaks).

Arruda shared student work from her graphing center. It is an excellent authentic assessment piece that followed a more structured lesson.

Xavier shared some math challenges and the student work that went along with it.

With all this sharing, our newest members (Brittany and Katrina) were able to ask questions and get ideas for their math groups too.  

In 2 weeks Brittany will bring student work of new lessons she is going to try with her math group. 

April 17, 2013

Claire Matheson

'D' is not really making progress in his letters... He can write on his own, which is a step forward. The 'b' sound is still tricky for him.

Video:
Claire is sharing a video of D talking about B. She thinks they're bad, but they're actually fantastic. A+ in videography.

In the video 'D' demonstrated inattentiveness by looking everywhere except where he is supposed to. But, D was starting to use the classroom displays as reference material to find the letter B.

Interesting discussion: Using the short a in the word 'ball' it is different than in words like cat and hat... So it was slightly confusing between the short u and the short a sounds. D was able to find the letter B and write it. When asked to write a small b he wrote a capital B smaller (scale).

Claire is working on the initial sound with B.

Everything discussed in previous PLC meetings seem to be working.

Focus on the letters in 'D's name. Don't worry about the lower case letters...Unsure about the support at home.

Mike MacKenzie

Mike remains stuck with D & D. He really feels like progress is not being made. They are forgetting everything they learned in the previous bunch of lessons, so even though we review the lessons.

After trying a number of interventions, students are not making the progress that he'd like them to make.

After discussion, we have decided that they need to do a bottom-up approach to phonics instruction with an iPad app called Explain Everything used to include oral reading skills.

Tammy
The cards are hugely successful! Students are working on place value, and they are adding and subtracting by 10s, 100s, 1000s, and 1s. Only Do can go over the 9.

D doesn't understand thousands, he believes that there is only 1 digit in the thousands place. For example, he thinks that 12300 is 1 million 2 thousand, 3 hundred. Kids can do all sorts of shapes and can use the geoboard on the iPad. Students have a hard time drawing it, but can do it on the ipad. Students can count the sides of a figure and tell what it is.

Now students are working on perimeter with quadrilateral for the upcoming Lego Logic unit.

Next will be a focus on perimeter and adding numbers.

Bent
Talked about needing to work with a few students at a time for an entire month or so, instead of working with kids for 40 minutes once per rotation. That way she could focus on a number of things instead of 1.

Next time Mike & Claire will present something amazing. Must be incredible.

March 6-PLC (Active Exploration: Math)

PLC notes

March 6, 2013

Lisa Thibeau

Terra Xavier

Jen Arruda

Anica Robinson

Terra presented a lesson on Area that she did with her students.  Within the lesson the students demonstrated their understanding of area using Explain Everything.

Within the student work, there was evidence of students varying levels of understanding.  Through the explanations it was clear what the learning had been and which concepts needed to be revisited.  Students also demonstrated connections to other mathematical concepts that were articulated in the explanations that they gave of their work.

Throughout the unit on area, students are learning about how area helps to inform how things are built in our world.  The students will be furthering their understanding by building a Lego city that will allow students to demonstrate through this engaging learning experience. 

Designers

Teachers are Designers of LearningWith Diana, Claire, Tammy, MikeMarch 5, 2013

Claire: 

Brought in a video of 'D' trying to figure out the letter B. Chose B because 'D' has shown confidence in. It really helped to clarify what he can do, and what he struggles with:

What he can do:
-identify uppercase letter B out of a given bunch of letters.
-can write the letter B without needing to trace it, but it still needs to be beside him.

Struggles:
-to make the sound of the letter B (often makes the 'P' sound).
-pointing out words with an initial sound of B.

Where to go:
-Want to go through the letters so he can identify the letters in a similar way.
-Want D to understand the 'B' sound... So will keep working at it during station time.
-Will focus on identifying letters so he knows what letter he is writing.

Claire will bring in more videos for next time.

Ideas:
-Use the SMART Board to write extra huge letters and draw pictures of things that begin with the letter B.
-Create a poster with the letter B in the middle and cut out pictures of things with the initial sound and paste them on.
-Should he focus on upper-case? Or should the focus be on lower-case? Claire is not only working with one, but is focussing on both.
-How can we get him to say that sound?
-What should teachers teach first, the lower case or uppercase?

Tammy

Update: J is absent a lot... So have only been able to go through "this" twice. Today was the test. Tammy made 10 numbers up to thousands, but it was too high. Using place value cards, without hoops (upstairs in the hallway).
Students raced to put numbers together (as discussed last time). Then students had to pick chance cards. For example, they may have to make a card that is 1 smaller or 2 bigger based on what place value students are representing. Students not getting it on paper, mentally, verbally... Only 1 student can do this.

Next Steps:
-Not going to do thousands anymore. Doing hundreds until they get it down. Going to give the kids a reference chart to help them. The numbers were too big. Hard for them to take it from their mind and put it on paper.
-Students will listen to a number and write it down...
-students are enjoying the movement of this.

Idea:
-Price Contest, students make numbers.
-Bring in cars
-take out 1000s
-Keep practicing what she's doing

Diana

Diana brought in a book called spelling Through Phonics. She has been working with C & H. Both are good readers (around an f). Getting closer to reading level. Playing a game b/c H needs practice on sight words:

Focus: Vowels and letter sounds. Students trace their hands on a piece of paper. Students role a letter and a vowel dice. Students need to make a 3 letter words. 1 vowel in each finger, and students write the words above each finger. Focus on short vowel sounds.

Sight Words: Through cards students are learning sight words.

Ideas: To put the sight words together based on a connection of some kind. For example, initial sounds, consant blends, digraphs, L, S, FL, BL type blends. Use bingo to go over diphthongs and digraphs, etc.

Order of Letter Learning (open for discussion!):
-Start with single consonants that 1 sound
-Move in to single consonants with multiple sounds (c & g)
-Move into short vowels
-consonant blends
-digraphs
-power of the e
-vowel combinations

February 20, 2012

Here is what Vanessa and I did today in our PLC. First, we both registered to attend the Calgary Reggio Network Association Meeting happening on March 4th. We are excited to attend this meeting and to move forward with our learning around the Reggio approach. We are also hoping that this meeting will give us some ideas and inspiration for moving forward with our PLC work by continuing to incorporate Reggio-based philosophies. 

We then took a critical look at some recent student work and, much like a report card, looked the the areas of strength and growth within the task and made an action plan for how we would like to move forward. We would both like to have our students write more narratives about their pictures and journal entries, but because of their limited experience with writing we cannot just assign large writing tasks. In the past, we have had students dictate their stories to us and we write/type them out. However, with 45 students at such varying ability levels it takes an extraordinary amount of time to get through all of them, and by the time we get to the last few most of them have forgotten their story or idea anyway. Hence, we took some time to look at various technologies that could support our students in expressing their stories and ideas such as Dragon Dictate, Powerpoint, and iMovie. We learned that some of these programs are more "user friendly" than others, but are both keen to try them out in our present unit. This is an exciting prospect for us because we know that when our students draw a picture in their journal, for example, that there is a whole story and thought process happening behind it, we are just looking for a realistic and effective way of helping them to document it!

Thanks, 

Heather and Vanessa

February 20, 2013

PLC Notes

February 20, 2013

Derek, Cheryl, Harjyote

·      How do we keep students motivated during centers?

o   Immediate rewards

o   Loss of other activities until work is complete

o   What is it that is keeping them from doing any work?

§  How can we change what his reactions to the work?

§  Focus on success

§  Success plan

·      If you do this you will see successes

§  Finding his motivation

§  Find what is setting them off

§  Pick and choose, so that they have control over what they are doing.

·      How do we keep students accountable for centers?

o   Have very clear and concise expectations laid out for them

·      How do we manage transitions to make them better for those students who have difficulty with them?

o   During centers

§  Stop and clean up center, heads down at the desk, and then students move to new center

§  Only moving the students who are off task after 20 minutes to the next center, leaving the ones that are focused to complete their work.

§  The Daily Five: read to self, read to others, Listen to others, word work, and work on writing.  Also incorporate work on math. 

§  Pick and choose for center work, instead.

§  Timing the transitions, to occur during natural breaks.

                       

Feb. 20- PLC (Active Exploration: Math)

PLC – February 20, 2013

Jen Aruba, Terra Xavier, Lisa Thibeau and Anica Robinson

Terra brought student math assessment questions to the table, since report cards are on our minds.

The issue was how to assess student work when we are integrating multiple strands within the discipline.  During math class, students are participating in authentic and engaging activities that encompass many different concepts. 

The problem arises of how to accurately represent their learning in their summative numeric assessment for the reporting period.

We came to the conclusion that it would be best to assess on a particular strand each term.  This would not necessarily have to be the same strand for each student, however, by the end of the year each student would have a comprehensive assessment of math.

In two weeks, Arruda, Thibeau and Xavier will bring student work from the projects discussed during previous PLCs to look at and comment on.

Retention...Letters & Place-value...

Teachers are Designers of Learning

Wednesday, February 20, 2013

Group Members: Claire, Tammy, Mike, (Diana is skipping ;)

Claire: 
Played a game called "Bang". Kids take a sight-word from a bag, if the card is "BANG!" they have to give up all of their cards. 'D' is trying to use the first letter of the word to identify the word. 'D' works well in the morning, during morning message. He is sometimes able to identify missing letters, but sometimes he just guesses. Recognition is one thing, writing it is the other. Making progress in:
-picking out letters
-recognizing letters
-future: Capital & Lower case (focus on just lowercase for now). 

Other:
-counting (can count, but can't pick out numbers (can't recognize them)). Can count with manipulatives. "Can you point out the number 6?" ... Pretty tough. 

Next time:
Claire will give him letters, and he will have to find all of that letter on a page. (Circles/Highlights/Stickers), and practice writing the letter as well.

** Digress & discussion about report cards ;) **
** Discussion about bottom-up literacy instruction vs. Whole Language; pendulums & extremes vs. personalizing for students **

Discussion about Edtech & iPads: Using "Explain Everything" as a way for 'D' to share what he can do. Perhaps making a page about a letter, and using his voice to explain pictures he has drawn.

Tammy:
'B': A lot further ahead than previously thought. Because of his speech impediment, thought it was lower. Realized that he is not as low. Knows numbers to 1000. 'D' is further behind.

Math: 'D' unable to use a number line. Struggles with place value. Struggles with counting and adding.

Plan: Take 'D' and 'J' and another and work with them using something physical. Three hoops, each student is gets a digit. Students need to move around to make a number. Using big number cards that students can touch. Tammy will use sheets of numbers to help students with "physical place value" and will record a movie of students problem-solving and trying to count up and down from a number endin gin '9'.

Mike: 
'D'  in the fifth grade is making NO progress in his reading instruction. He is unable to retain what he has learned from previous days, and we have to start from scratch every day. Have been working on vowels, but have noticed that we need to step back and focus on consonants (b, d, p) and (m, n). Also, 'D' is reading from right to left, and inventing sounds that aren't there. Need strategies to go from last to right and to find the difference between letters.

After watching video:
-make cue cards for 'b,p,d,t,m,n,h" as initial sounds.
-use the tricks as before.
-focus on each as only initial sounds.
-onset and rimes (word families)
-make cards with the onset, matching rimes. (Puzzles - so it has to fit in a shape to make the sound).
-phonics wheels for onsets & rimes - make it for 'big' kids?

Mike Will: 
-Adapt Phonics Games & Learning Activities for older kids, and to match the letter needs stated above. Will record 'D' reading his rimes & onsets.

Tammy Story: Hold fists with thumbs up, looks at them and sees the "b" on the left hand and "d" on his right hand. Say the letters infront of a piece of paper, "b" the paper doesn't move, "p" the paper has to move. 'MMmmmm McDonalds".

Feb. 6- PLC (Active Exploration: Math)

PLC- February 6, 2013

Xavier and Ndegwa were at prior commitments, so Arruda and Thibeau sat down to examine an activity developed by Arruda for her higher level math group.

Her concern was how to create a centre that fosters independence and make sure the task is authentic without confusing students with too many steps (visually appealing to meet various levels of abilities within her group).

As a pre-assessment of knowledge for graphing, each student will survey Keeler School for the most popular “fun” lunch.  The students will collect, tally, graph and interpret the data and bring their findings to the Generosity Club to help with the decision on future “fun” lunches for the school.

We came to the conclusion that it would be best to break down the larger task into clearer and more defined smaller steps to enable the students to work independently and be successful. 

The students will be introduced to the centre and will complete the task within the next month.  Once completed, Arruda will bring student work samples to review, as well as how she believes the project went (pros and cons). 

Assessment (23/01/2013)

Active Math

PLC – January 23, 2013

Issue with student learning is engaging students in number concepts so that it can be authentic and active. We want to address different levels of ability through the activity(so that students stay engaged).

We are examining a center developed by Thibeau prior to implementing with students so that we can talk through kinks to student learning. One of the goals is to make it so that students can do the learning in groups independent from the teacher.

In 2 weeks we are going to meet again to look over the student work to gauge authenticity and student success. (Thibeau will video the students in action).

DISCUSSION POINTS WE CAME ACROSS

·    One characteristic of the task is to incorporate their interest levels and learning styles to motivate students in doing the math task.

·    Enrichment opportunities once they had the general understanding of the task for the students who need different entry points.

·    Ways to modify for “regular” classroom settings and other grades

·    The structure of the activity remains the same but the math cards can be changed to cover different concepts.

Active Exploration (21/01/2013)

Group Members: Heather & Vanessa

Our Active Exploration team has been focusing on integrating our ECEC Grant Proposal (Creating Spaces that Inspire Students to Talk) with effective PLC discussions to further the work.  As the ECEC Grant requires the writing of an article to be published for next year, we spent time discussing the collection of data and planning for the students’ participation in the coming weeks.  We don’t currently have student work as part of this project but did take the time to consider students language development, as these are the students for which this project is designed to help.

Since our goal is “Creating Spaces that Inspire Students to Talk” we have decided to focus on the TEFR Principle 4 – Strong Relationships Exist.  Much of this principle is about listening, relating, and conversing about our work.  We realize that many of our students are on different points on this continuum, and are aiming to move them forward by:

« Grouping with stronger role models (language skills)

« Small group work with our SLP and SLA and practicum SLP and teachers to converse/value the steps it takes to complete their work (i.e. focusing on the process) and to modify or improve their work as it evolves

« Provide workspaces that inspire/allow artworks to evolve (art studio) which will be the basis of our conversation groups

« Providing materials that are ‘special’ and valuable (not just in a financial sense!)

« Providing resources (books, art prints, etc) to trigger conversations and for the students to model their work on, and to learn strategies for completing their work (procedural reading/retelling)

« Students interact with each other about ideas in which the dialogue builds on each other’s ideas

For next PLC time, Heather and I will be collecting audio recordings of conversation with our 3 focus students (low, medium, high) as a starting point from which to collect data.  From a group art activity project, we’ll talk to students with the following prompts:

« Tell me about it.

« Tell me about how you made it.

« Tell me where you got your ideas from.

« Tell me about the materials you used.

« Did you have any problems making this?

« How did you solve them?

« What do you like best about your artwork?

Strong Relationships (23/01/2013)

To increase student engagement in learning

Brandy Eagleson, Cheryl Hayword, Derek Rakowski, Harjyote Shergill

PLC Notes January 23, 2013

Gr 3,

Polar Bear Lesson

Began with a mixed media art project creating an Arctic scene with Polar Bears.  As a connection with a story of a Polar Bear.  As a class through discussions, the elements of the story are taken apart and analyzed to see and create the plot diagram. 

Ie) how the character is described

       How the setting is described

     The problem and solution

The students were engaged in the process, the conversation was directed by them, to fit in all of the elements of the plot. 

When students would bring up a concept

(ie  the polar bear was in a cage.  The question was posed where was the bear going to be taken?  Students came to the consensus that the bear would be taken to a zoo.  When asked how they came to that conclusion, they were able to say that they’ve been able to identify that the animals in the zoo are originally in the wild.  The teacher pointed out then that they had made a connection)

Eventually the students will take these ideas and create their own Polar Bear adventures.

Through initiating the process of writing through art, a story example and group modeling process, the students are excited to create their own work. 

How to maintain the engagement into the writing process:

Taking the students out for a walk, to get their idea for the senses, and group charting, and then creating the sentences. 

A grouping of students with mixed abilities to create an initial story, and then moving the students into similar group abilities to go into the centers.

            Mixed between the classes.

Story starter and then a story beginning, and then the students with a low ability are then beginning to create a plan, and then with support, those students are telling their stories to a scribe.

Create writing centers so that each student can be helped at their level, and target their growth possibilities:

Reading Centers:

-       Buddy Reading

-       Making words

-       Independent Reading

-       Comprehension Reading

-       Guided Reading

Writing Centers:

-       Making boring words extraordinary

-       Story beginnings

-       Editing

-       Story planner

-       Teacher lead

Start with Beginnings:

Write beginnings

Re-write the beginnings of a problem

Then moving into middle:

The magic of 3

Then moving into endings

How to complete a story

What does this look like for our learners that have little to no independence skills?

Pairing up with other students, without having the students helping take over for them. 

                        Scribing from another student and having them, copy it into their books.

In the future:

To see how the centers are working, how the ones that are doing well are working and why and the ones that aren’t working and why and how to make them better.

What the students of different ability are producing.  Where to go from there.

Designers of Learning (01/23/2013)

Teachers are Designers of Learning

Wednesday, January 23, 2013

Group Members: Mike Diana Tammy Claire

Diana: 

What they did: Students took pictures of their food, things they did at home. Studnets talked about pictures and shared them with eachother. They wrote a few sentences about 1 picture. Noticed that the tenses were in the wrong tenses. So Diana developed a simple X & O game where students conjugated verbs and got to go on the board. But if they got it wrong, the other student could steal  the turn and go.

Worked well because of the motivation of the board game. Students also got to use the chalk, and this excited them. So. Chalk.

She repeated the game to change verbs from present tense to past tense.

Diana is feeling like she doesn't see the kids enough, so it's tricky. (Only once every six-day rotation).

Claire: 

On the previous notes, Claire discussed a student named 'D' and his struggles with academics and social interaction. She wanted him to focus and work %50 percent of the time. She evoked 2 strategies. The first was to get him to trace letters writing with a highlighter. The second was an extrinsic reward.

Work Discussed: Claire brought in examples of his writing. One traced over a highlighter, the other traced over dotted writing. He did much better with the dotted writing. So the struggle is finding a way to get him to write in the appropriate size.

Suggestions: A web site that you can type and print dotted letters on a line. Could help with the agenda message if it was printing and stapled to the page. Has his hearing been checked? Unsure. Will check.

Letter song and book to use with D. called "Ants on the Apple" from another teacher. Works really well because it is catchy and repetitive, and they are able to memorize it (that sense of success).

Other Problems: D is having a hard time picking out letters. He is working on his phonological awareness... An issue with cognitive ability and fine-motor skills. Can memorize how to write words (like his name), but doesn't recognize the letters. Doesn't recognize letters or their corresponding sounds.

Tammy

In dire need of computer help. Learning a lot from classes and kids. Learning how to make movies. Build confidence.

Working on: Guided reading (Reading Power: Questioning). Math with low-level students. Lots of time spend on IPPs - seeing where their goals are and what they're working on. Getting to know the students (Where do I start with each student?). Trying to get them all on the same page.

Math: Working with students in small groups to do the regular class work. Help to break down regular lessons. Finding it hard because students may need to do something completely different.

Grade 5 Social Studies: Each doing a different group of people (Metis, Inuit, etc.). Each teacher has 3 lessons that includes video, art, writing. After the three lessons each teacher gets a new group.

Grade 6 Social Studies: 3 groups of kids. Two are phonics. The other is guided reading. Also working on story writing.

Action Plan: B: Will get frustrated. Will bring in his visual journal to discuss. Will share how it is set up for him so we can do it. Will spend the next couple weeks thinking about where he needs the most help. Will bring that work in to enhance the conversation.

Vowel Sounds Story: A kid goes to the story to get bread. If there is extra money, the kid gets some gum. The kid gets the gum, goes home, realizes the change was wrong. Goes back to the store and says, with a huge amount of gm in his mouth "Lady(A, E) I O U some Money, and the lady says, Y"

Whole Group Focus: 

Mike

Will develop a phonics plan for the boys, and will bring it back (along with student work, perhaps video) to share and develop. 

Diana

You will look at the activities in the communication book that we've found and will critique the book to help others decide if it is good or not.  

Tammy

Will bring in some of B's work and will discuss place value work. And will look through his old work, will go through the IPP and will use us to help set next steps. 

Claire

Sound recognition with D. Trying to get him learning three words that start with the letter D. Will try to get the sound of it. And will bring back notes. Will include physical activity (running and jumping on letters, can't leave until you say the sound, etc.).