I Love Saturdays and domingos, by Alma FLor Ada

Most everyone enjoys the weekends. In this story a little girl spends Saturdays with her grandparents who come from a European-American background and Sundays she spends with her grandparents who come from a Mexican-American background. The activities they do are similar and yet different. The little girl knows that both are good ways and that both sets of grandparents love her very much.

Materials

Gallon milk jug or piñata
People shaped cookie cutters or various sizes
Dollhouse if possible with furniture
Pictures of Grandparents and Grandchildren
Old and new pictures for sorting

Vocabulary

There are many Spanish words dispersed within the story.
Abuelita y Abuelito (Grandmother and Grandfather in Spanish)
Seashore (another word for the beach at the ocean)
Aquarium (a place where fish live)

Before Reading the Story

Ask the children if anyone has Grandparents who live by or visit them? Allow the children to talk about their Grandparent experiences. ( My Gradma came to my house for Christmas. My Grandpa took me fishing). Ask the children if anyone knows how they are related to you? These are your parents, parents. Your Mom and Dad are their babies, just like you are your Mom and Dad’s baby.

Language Development/Speaking & Communicating; develops increasing abilities to understand and use language to communicate information, experiences, ideas, feelings, opinions, needs, questions; and for other varied purposes.

Reading the Story

Practice reading the story so that you can properly pronounce the words in Spanish. Invite someone who is bi-lingual to read the story for you today.

After Reading the Story

Go back through the pictures and talk about how each set of grandparents does something similar but a little different. Explain that both ways are good because the little girl knows that each set of grandparents loves her very much. After discussing all the things the grandparents did with the girl, ask the children to tell you something that they would like to do with a grandparent. Write their answers on a sheet of paper and title it, My Grandparent List. Hang it on the wall for parents to see. (I wish my Grandma would bake me cookies, I wish my Grandparents would take me to the seashore).

Literacy/Print Awareness & Concepts; develops growing understanding of different functions of forms of print such as signs, letters, newspapers, lists, messages, and menus.

Discovery

Sort pictures of old and new objects.

Mathematics/Patterns & Measurement; shows increasing abilities to match, sort, put in a series, and regroup objects according to one or two attributes such as shape or size.

Music and Movement

These are Grandma’s Spectacles finger play

These are Grandma’s spectacles , Make circles over eyes with fingers touching thumbs. And this is Grandma’s hat. Put hands on head to make a little hat. And here’s the way she folds her hands, Fold hands onto lap. To take a little nap. Rest chin on chest and pretend to snore.

Creative Arts/Music; participates with increasing interest and enjoyment in a variety of music activities, including listening, singing, finger plays, games, and performances.

Tell the children that you are going to pretend to go to Grandparents house. Move across the room by jumping. Have the children follow you. Now take turns picking children to show other ways to move across the room to go to Grandparents home. (skip, backwards, crawl, tiptoe).

Physical Health & Development/Gross Motor SKills; shows increasing levels of proficiency, control, and balance in walking, climbing, running, jumping hopping, skipping, marching, and galloping.

Sing Mi Casa, My House https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NaTgmKVtf1o

Language Development/Listening & Understanding; understands an increasingly complex and varied vocabulary.

Sing We Are A Family by Jack Hartmann and teach the children the sign language that goes along. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=foptl0BeXnY

Language Development/Listening & Understanding; understands an increasingly complex and varied vocabulary.

Blocks

Encourage the children to build houses today for the people set. Can they make beds and chairs that will fit the people from blocks?

Approaches to Learning/Reasoning & Problem Solving; develops increasing ability to find more than one solution to a question, task, or problem. AND Mathematics/Pattern & Measurement; shows progress in using standard and non-standard measures for length and area of objects.

Art

Cut or tear pictures of people from magazines and make a family collage.

Physical Health & Development/Fine Motor Skills; grows in hand-eye coordination in building with blocks, putting together puzzles, reproducing shapes and patterns, stringing beads, and using scissors.

Bring in various sizes of people cookie cutters for the children to use today. As they play with the dough, talk to them about what they like to do with their family and grandparents.

Allow the child to paint their hand using the easel paint and brushes. Once their hand is covered with paint, they can make prints on the easel paper. Suggest they paint their fingers different colors than their palm. Although this is messy, many children like this sensory experience.

Creative Arts/Art; begins to understand and share opinions about artistic products and experiences.

Sand and Water

Put damp sand in the table today along with small cars and boxes. The children can pretend that the boxes are homes and drive their cars to Grandparents home. Ask them what they might see on the way to Grandparents home and encourage them to make these geographical structures in the sand. (When I go to Grandpa’s house there are mountains all around. My Grandparent lives near the lake).

Social & Emotional Development/Knowledge of Families & Communities; begins to express and understand concepts and language of geography in the contexts of the classroom, home, and community.

Library and Writing

Ask each child to tell you something that they like to, or would like to do, with their grandparent. Write it on a piece of paper and then ask the child to illustrate it. If they have no experience with a Grandparent, have them do the same activity using a parent of adult friend.

Literacy/Early Writing; begins to represent stories and experiences through pictures, dictation, and in play. AND Social & Emotional Development/Knowledge of Families & Communities; develops ability to identify personal characteristics, including gender and family composition.

Dramatic Play

Add pictures of Grandparents and Grandchildren to help stimulate play today.

Approaches to Learning/Initiative & Curiosity; grows in eagerness to learn about and discuss a growing range of topics, ideas, and tasks.

Bring in a variety of play telephones so the children can pretend to call their grandparents. Call out numbers for them to dial. Do they recognize the written numerals?

Mathematics/Number & Operations; begins to associate number concepts, vocabulary, quantities, and written numerals in meaningful ways.

Math and Manipulatives

Bring out the Unifix cubes and a dice today. Have a child roll the dice and build a tower with that many Unifix cubes. Go around the circle taking turns rolling the dice and adding that many cubes to their tower. After five rolls, stop and compare the towers. Who has the tallest tower? The shortest? Do it again but this time have the children lay their stack down on the table as they build it. Who has the longest, the shortest? Have the children count the number of Unifix cubes in their tower.

Mathematics/Geometry & Spatial Sense; builds an increasing understanding of directionality, order, and positions of objects, and words such as up, down, over, under, top, bottom, inside, outside, in front, and behind.

Outdoor Play

Trace around each child’s body using chalk on a sidewalk. Let the children use the colored chalk to decorate their body if they choose.

Social & Emotional Development/Self-Concept; begins to develop and express awareness of self in terms of specific abilities, characteristics, and preferences.

If possible, bring a piñata outside with you today. Let the children take turns trying to hit it. If you do not have a piñata, hang an empty gallon milk jug from a branch and pretend that it is a piñata.

Physical Health & Development/Gross Motor Skills; demonstrates increasing abilities to coordinate movements in throwing, catching, kicking, bouncing balls, and using the slide or swing.

Transitions

Play Name Something. Take turns asking the children something they like to do with their, parent, grandparent, friend, and alone.

Approaches to Learning/Reasoning & Problem Solving; develops increasing ability to find more than one solution to a question, task, or problem. AND Social & Emotional Development/Self-Concept; begins to develop and express awareness of self in terms of specific abilities, characteristics, and preferences.