Alexander Mouse befriends a little wind-up mouse named Willy.  But one day Willy’s life is about to change.  The child he belongs to has thrown him into the trash.  What will become of Willy?  What will Alexander do to help his friend?

Materials

• A pebble that is purple or painted purple
• Pictures of animals both real and not-real
• lizard shape
• Eye droppers and food coloring
• 3-4 wind-up toys

Vocabulary

• Envy (wishing to be like someone else)
• Vain (to think you are the best looking, always)

Before reading the Story

Bring a purple pebble to your rug time.  Tell the children that this is a magical purple pebble.  With this pebble you can pretend to be any animal that you wish to become.  Pass the pebble around and let the children tell you what kind of an animal they would choose to be.  Or, ask them to make the animals call sound and see if you can guess what animal they chose to be.

Approaches to Learning/Initiative & Curiosity; chooses to participate in an increasing variety of tasks, activities, projects, and experiences. AND Social & Emotional Development/Self-Concept; begins to develop and express awareness of self in terms of specific abilities, characteristics, and preserfences.

Reading the Story

When you get to the part where Willy is telling Alexander about the magic lizard, stop and ask the children what they think is going to happen next.

Literacy/Book Knowledge & Appreciation; demonstrates progress in abilities to retell and dictate stories from books and experiences; to act out stories in dramatic play; and to predict what will happen next in a story.

After Reading the Story

Ask the children if they thought Alexander was a good friend, why or why not?  Ask the children if they have a favorite toy at home, what is it?

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

Discovery

Sort animal pictures by real animals verses not real animals.

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 color.

Music and Movement

Sing, There is a Child, to the tune of BINGO.  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JuBBo8uudYw

Write the children’s names onto sentence strips.  Hold up one of the names as you sing and point to the letters.

There is a child at our school,
Can you guess his/her name-o
S-e-a-n, S-e-a-n, S-e-a-n,
Yes, Sean is his name-o.

Literacy/Alphabet Knowledge; identifies at least 10 letters of the alphabet, especially those in their  name.

Blocks

Add a variety of animals today.  Ask the children to sort them, build a house for their favorite animal, or arrange from smallest to largest.

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 color.

Art

Cut the lizard out of white construction paper or watercolor paper.  Put out cups filled with water that you have added food coloring to.  Show the children how to pinch the eye dropper to suck the water up and then drop it onto the lizard shape.  Let the children experiment with mixing colors by dropping them onto the lizard shape.

Physical Health & Development/Fine Motor Skills; develops strength, dexterity, and control needed to use tools such as scissors, paper punch, stapler, and hammer.

Sand and Water

Depending upon the children in your care, fill the table up with fish gravel and small pebbles that the children can scoop or pick up with tongs or tweezers.  If you have children that you fear might put the small stones into their facial orifices, use larger stones with sand to scoop and pour as they look for the pebbles.

Physical Health & Development/Fine Motor Skills; develops strength, dexterity, and control needed to use tools such as scissors, paper punch, stapler, and hammer.

Library and Writing

On top of a piece of paper write: I wish, I wish , I wish I was a ___________.  Ask the children to fill in the blank, write their response and then ask the child to draw a picture of what they would like to become.  For older children you can ask them why they chose to become a _______.  Write their response on the paper.

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

Dramatic Play

Give the children a box or bag and ask them to help you clean the center.  Use the box for all the broken or unused items.  It’s time to bring in some new dramatic supplies.

Math and Manipulatives

Bring in any wind up toys that you may have.  (Children seem to really like music boxes where they can see the gears move).

Physical Health & Development/Fine Motor Skills; develops strength, dexterity, and control needed to use tools such as scissors, paper punch, stapler, and hammer.

Outdoor Play

Rhythm march to or around the playground.  As you march chant, “Friends forever, friends forever”.

Creative Arts/Movement; shows growth in moving in time to different patterns of beat or rhythm of music.

Transitions

Have the children repeat the following phrase and insert an animal into the blank.  They can then do the animal movement on their way to the next activity.  “I wish, I wish, I wish I was a ________”.

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

Resources