State and Model the Objective
The children will pretend to scream for ice cream as they read and write words spelled with the long e vowel pattern, such as cream, scream, team, dream, gleam, and steam.
 

Literacy Activities
Scream for ice cream

• Show the children the picture of ice cream (see below) and ask if they like ice cream.
• Tell the children that they will act as a team and do things together.
• Read the Scream for Ice Cream target text (see below) and have the children act out the text using paper for ice cream and cotton balls for whipped cream:
  • Join a team to make ice cream.  
  • Scream for cream to make the ice cream.
  • Whip and freeze the cream to make ice cream.
  • Scream for whipped cream.
  • Put whipped cream on the ice cream.   
• Have the children write “I scream for ice scream,” on a piece of paper and then roll the paper into a ball. 
• Let the children pretend to eat their ice cream.
• Have the children pretend to sleep and dream of ice cream.
• Have the children pretend to wake up and say that they had a dream about ice cream and whipped cream. 

More Practice
Identify, blend, and manipulate sounds
With word-building cards (see below), have the children make new words by changing either the beginning or ending consonants:

• Change the beginning consonant(s): dream→ gleam, scream→ stream, real→ deal, steam→ seam  
• Change the ending consonant: cream→ creak, beam→ beat, steam→ steal

Read target words in texts

• Engage the children in reading Beam at the Sight of Ice Cream (see below):
  • Have the children write a list of the words spelled with -ea.
  • Read the text again, fading support

Write about the activity using target words and patterns

• Give each child a paper and pencil and let them write words from dictation (e.g., cream, scream, team, beam, dream, gleam, steam, stream, eat, real, deal). 
• Let them write about what they did with ice cream (e.g., “My team likes to scream for ice cream with whipped cream. I beam when I get to eat ice cream. I had a dream that I had real ice cream).