State and Model the Objective
The children will let clowns fall down and then read and write words containing the -ow pattern, such as clown, crown, down, frown, gown, town, and brown.
 
Literacy Activities
Clowns are coming to town

• Announce that clowns are coming to town.
• Give the children a clown graphic.
• Let the children make brown crowns and brown gowns for their clowns.

Pretend to be clowns that frown

• Have the children make brown crowns for themselves.
• Let the children pretend to be clowns wearing crowns walking around town.
• Have the children make paper frowns and be clowns with big frowns. 

Let paper clowns go upside down and land facedown

• Tell the children that clowns like to do tricks.
• Let the children make the clown graphics do tricks, such as go upside down (do handstands), fall down, and land facedown.
• Point out that the clowns’ smiles turn into frowns when they turn upside down.

Count down until the clowns fall down

• Make the paper clowns stand up and fall down.
• Stand the clowns up, count down from three, and let the clowns fall down again.
• Let one clown sit on top of another clown’s shoulders and fall down.
• Count down from three and let the children pretend to be clowns who fall down.

More Practice
Identify, blend, and manipulate sounds

• With word-building cards, have the children make new words by changing the consonants before -own:
  • down→ gown→ town, frown→ brown→ drown→ clown→ crown

Read target words in texts

• Read the Clowns Come to Town target text to the children.
• Engage the children in reading the target text with you.
• Read the text with the children again, fading support.
• Help the children make a list of the -ow words that they heard.

Write about the activity using words with -ow

• Have the children write words as you say them: clown, crown, down, frown, gown, town, brown, drown, downtown.
• Review words with -ow.
• Present sentence frames for the children to complete.
  • Some clowns have come to ___ (town).
  • Some clowns have ___ (frowns).
  • Some clowns wear ___ (gowns or crowns).
  • Some clowns wear brown ___ (crowns) and brown ___ (gowns).
  • When the clowns do tricks, they ___ (fall down, go upside down, frown).