Overview 
The children will take a horse on a course and will read and write words with -orse, -ourse, and -orce, such as horse, course, and force.

Literacy Activities
Make a course for a horse

• Tell the children that a course is a track where a horse can walk or run.
• Read the A Course for a Horse target text (found below) with the children. 
• Set up a course for a toy or paper horse. 
• Let the toy or paper horse go go over, under, or through things.
• Invite the children to guide, and not force, the paper horse through the course.

Is this a horse?

• Explain that seahorse and saw horse have horse in their names but that they are not horses.
• Display the word cards (found below) seahorse, saw horse, pack horse, and race horse.
  • If the card displays a horse, have the children say, "Of course it is a horse." 
  • If the card is a seahorse or saw horse, have the children say, "Of course it is not a horse."
• Make A Horse and Not a Horse label and have the children put the horses (e.g., pack horse, race horse, seahorse, and saw horse) in the rightful categories.. 

Tell a story about a horse

• Read, chant, or sing the target text A Horse, Of Course! (found below).
• Invite the children to underline the words with -or and -ourse.

More Practice
Read target words in texts

• Engage the children in reading the target text A Course for the Horse together.
• Have the children make a list of the words with the r-controlled spelling patterns -or and -our (e.g., horse, course).
• Read the text again, fading support.
• Repeat with the A Horse, Of Course! target text.

Write about the activity using target words and patterns

• Using a word wall with -or words (e.g., horse, course, force, pack horse, race horse, seahorse, saw horse), ask the children to write sentences about taking a horse on a course.
• Ask the children to write about which horses are real and which are not real horses (i.e, “A race horse is a horse. A seahorse is not a horse.”.