State and Model the Objective
The children will pretend to ice skate and read words with the two long-vowel spellings silent e and -ay, such as slide, glide, day, and way.

Literacy Activities
Describe ice

• Show the children an ice cube or a picture of ice (found below) in a bowl.
• Comment on how ice can slide and glide in a bowl but that it won’t stay—it will melt away in less than a day.

Pretend to ice skate

• Display the Ice Skate Today? No Way! target text (found below) for the children to see.
• Read the target text with the children.
• Read the text again while making the ice-skater cutout (found below) . . . 
  • skate, glide, and slide on ice.
  • walk away and say, “There is no way to stay on the ice this day.” 
• Have the children identify the words in the text that have the long-vowel patterns (-ay and silent e).
• Put drops of water on the ice (real or pictured) and comment on how there is no way to stay and play on melting ice today. 

More Practice 
Write about the activity 

• Have the children write words from dictation (e.g., ice, nice, skate, glide, slide, came, gray, stay, away, today, play, way, day).
• Display the words on a word wall.
• Reread Ice Skate Today? No Way! and have the children write the story in their own words including . . .  
  • Wanting to skate on a cold, gray day.
  • Having the ice melt away and not being able to stay and skate that day.