Overview

The children will go on a quest to find and make words that end in -est, such as rest, nest, test, quest, and chest. 

Literacy Activities

Rest from a quest

• Hide the picture cards around the room, and put the nest graphic in the center of the room.
• Tell the children to go on a quest to look for words that end in -est.
• Have the children chant, "Going on a quest!"
• When the children find a picture, have them say, "I found a ___ on our quest!" and let them put their card to rest in the nest.
• When all the pictures are found, tell the children that they can rest.
• Ask the children to share the words they found as you write them on the board (explain that the qu in the word quest makes the /kw/ sound).
• Invite the children to underline the -est in the words.

Make words that end in -est

Fit words into sentence frames

• Display the picture cards so that the children can see them.
• Help the children identify each card and point out that each word ends in -est.
• Give teams of children the sentence frames to fill in with -est words, referring to the picture cards if needed. 

Describe target words 

• Write nest on the board and analyze the word with the children.
  • How many sounds and letters are there?
  • How many vowels? What sounds do the vowels make?
  • How is nest different from net?
  • Can you describe the structure of the word nest?
    • CVCC (consonant-vowel-consonant-consonant) pattern.
  • Do this exercise with other -est words (e.g., rest, pest) as desired.