Cat Likes Hats

Objective

Read and write words that end in –at.

Target Words:

Materials:

Overview
The children will be playing a game about a fat cat as they read and write words ending in –at such as cat, sat, rat, and hat.

Literacy Activities
Fat Cat will pat your hat

Let each child choose a hat (attached to a craft stick).
Have the children sit in a circle and hold their hats above their heads.
Choose a child to be Fat Cat. He or she will wear the Fat Cat headband, give his or her hat to the teacher (to put aside), and stand outside the circle.
Play a version of Duck, Duck, Goose called Cat, Cat, Hat:
- The child who is Fat Cat will say, “Fat Cat will pat your hat,” as he or she lightly taps each person’s hat. Fat Cat will eventually tell one child, “Fat Cat will not pat your hat.”
- Fat Cat and the chosen child will run around the circle to try and get back to the empty spot first.
- If Fat Cat gets back to the empty spot first, he or she will get the hat and give the Fat Cat Headband to the other child, who will become Fat Cat for the next round of play.
- If Fat Cat does not get back to the empty spot first, he or she will remain the Fat Cat for the next round.
Between each round of the game, write an –at word on the board for the children to see and have the class read the word out loud together.

More Practice
Read and write target words

Display the Cat Likes Hats target text large enough for the children to see.
Have the children find and circle the –at words in the text.
Read the text with the children and prompt the children to say the –at words after you have given them the beginning sound as a clue.
As a group, think of words that rhyme with cat and list them in front for the children to see.
Point to the –at words at random, and have the children read the word being pointed to.
Gradually speed up, challenging the children to read the words quickly.

Write about the activity using target words

Re-read the target text Cat Likes Hats and permit the children to write their own version of the text.
Encourage the children to use as many different words that end in -at as possible.

Cat likes hats!
Cat will pat your hat.
Cat will pat your hat.
Cat will pat your hat.
But Cat will not pat your hat!

Run, cat! Run with that hat!
Oh no! Cat sat on the hat!
The hat is now flat.
But Cat likes flat hats, too!

Objective

Read and write words ending in -at (e.g., cat, fat).

Materials

Activity: Cat, Cat, Hat

Together with your child, write an -at word on each Cat, Cat, Hat memory card.
Shuffle the memory cards and place them face down in even rows.
Take turns turning over two cards at a time. If the two cards are the same, the player gets to keep them. If the two cards do not match, they are turned back over.
Have your child read the -at word on each card that is turned over.
The first player to get 2 pairs of cats and one pair of hats shouts, "Cat, Cat, Hat!" wins.
The activity can be repeated several times.

Cat-Hat-cards