Yoko, by Rosemary Wells

Yoko is taking her favorite lunch to school today, homemade sushi. But at lunch the children make fun of her unusual meal. Find out how her teacher helps her to feel better about eating differently than the other children. This is a good book to talk about acceptance and the hurtfulness of teasing.

Materials

Several sets of chopsticks (you can use unsharpened pencils also). Put a small rubber band around them so the children can more easily open and close the sticks.
2 small bowls and a handful of puffballs
Pictures of foods

Vocabulary

sushi-a food from Japan that is made with rice, fish, and vegetables that look like balls or rolls.

Before Reading the Story

Start a conversation about favorite lunch time foods. If you have a cook at your school write a thank you not that tells some of the children’s favorite foods. Remind the children that sometimes the lunch has a new item on the menu and that you encourage everyone to try a “no thank you helping at the least”.

Literacy/Early Writing; develops understanding that writing is a way of communicating for a variety of purposes.

Reading the Story

When you get to the page where Valerie blew the whistle and says, “Everybody out!” Ask the children why they think that Valerie did this (the children were teasing her, they were not being nice to the cat, they made fun of her).

Literacy/Book Knowledge & Appreciation; shows growing interest and involvement in listening to and discussing a variety of fiction, non-fiction and poetry.

After Reading the Story

After you have read the story, ask again what happened at lunch that made Yoko so upset? Lead this into a discussion about kindness and not teasing others. Explain that teasing makes people feel sad and mad. Let the children know of any acts of kindness that you have seen in the last two days (Ann showed Michael how to open the paint jar so he could get more paint. Ryan told Paula he would give her a ride on the back of his tricycle when there were no more left. Alison told Sean “I like your new shoes”). Remind the children that if someone is teasing you, you can stand up for yourself and say, ”I don’t like it when you______”.

Social & Emotional Development/Self Control; develops growing understanding of how their actions affect others and begins to accept the consequences of their action. AND Social & Emotional Development/Social Relationships; progresses in responding sympathetically to peers who are in need, upset, hurt, angry; and in expressing empathy or caring to others.

Discovery

At lunch today, encourage all the children to try at least one bite of a new food. If you have a picky eater, ask someone who likes the food already to try to explain the taste before the picky eater tries his/her bite. Remind them that in the story the children decided that they would try everything! Encourage all the children to try a No thank you helping of all foods served at lunch.

Social & Emotional Development/Cooperation; increases abilities to sustain interactions with peers b helping, sharing, and discussion.

Music and Movement

If you use any of the song titles from the story with your classroom, sing it with the children at your music time today. (The Good Morning Song, The Snack Time Song, The Friendly Song, The Clean Hands Song, and The School Bus Song).

Language Development/Listening & Understanding; demonstrates increasing ability to attend to and understand conversations, stories, songs, and poems.

Sing You Have To Eat Good Food to The Hokey Pokey https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QfPg_GzC-HA

You have to eat good food to grow, grow, grow

You have to exercise to grow, grow, grow

You have to sleep at night to grow, grow, grow

Take good care of yourself.

Physical Health & development/Health Status & Practices; builds awareness and ability to follow basic health and safety rules such as fire safety, traffic and pedestrian safety, and responding appropriately to potentially harmful objects, substances, and activities.

Blocks

Challenge the children to make a table big enough for them to eat at. How many blocks did it take? What else did they use besides blocks?

Approaches to learning/Reasoning & Problem Solving; develops increasing ability to find more than one solution to a question, task, or problem.

Art

Pretend to make sushi and practice rolling play dough. Give each child a lump of play dough and a roller. If you do not have rollers, cylinder blocks work well. Let the children practice rolling the dough out thin. After they have rolled it out, show them how to roll the dough into a long cylinder like shape. Let them use plastic knives to cut it into small sushi like pieces.

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

Sand and Water

Use dampened sand in the table today. Add some plates, pots and pans, and cooking utensils. The children can pretend to be making food.

Creative Arts/Dramatic Play; shows growing creativity and imagination in using materials and in assuming different roles in dramatic play situations.

Library and Writing

Ask the children to draw a picture of their favorite lunch and then the teacher can write what they say it is underneath. Hang these on the wall, as ‘These are a few of our favorite meals’.

Literacy/Early Writing; begins to represent stories and experiences through pictures, dictation, and in play. AND Literacy/Early Writing; develops understanding that writing is a way of communicating for a variety of purposes.

Dramatic Play

Remind the children that in the story Yoko and Timothy pushed their desks together to play restaurant. Put out a takeout menu or restaurant props for the children today

Creative Arts/Dramatic Play; shows growing creativity and imagination in using materials and in assuming different roles in dramatic play situations.

Math and Manipulatives

Bring in several pairs of chopstick or make them using unsharpened pencils. Put out a bowl of puffballs and challenge the children to pick up the puffballs one at a time and drop them into another bowl.

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

Outdoor Play

Let the children make Garden Soup today. Put out buckets, water, and scissors. Show the children how to cut grass with the scissors to add to the soup as well as pine needles, rocks, bark, etc..

Creative Arts/Dramatic Play; shows growing creativity and imagination in using materials and in assuming different roles in dramatic play situations. AND Approaches to learning/Initiative & Curiosity; approaches tasks and activities with increased flexibility, imagination, and inventiveness.

Transitions

Hold up a picture of a food and ask a child to name it. The child can then move on to the next activity.

Resources

When Sophie Gets Angry- Really, Really Angry, Molly Bang

Sometimes we all get really, really angry. This book shows how one person defuses with all those angry feelings in a positive way.

Materials

Blank head with ‘I get angry when ____’
Vinegar
Baking soda

Vocabulary

Smithereens (lots of little pieces)
Angry (when you feel really mad inside)
Explode (to get really, really angry)
Volcano (a mountain that spits out the earth’s innards)

Introducing the Story

Ask the children how you can tell if someone is angry? Ask them to show you what angry looks like. Help the children to notice anger does not only show in the face but the whole body. Tell them that you are going to act out some emotions and see if the children can guess from your body language and facial expression. Let the children try mimicking you.

Social & Emotional Development/Social Relationships; progresses in responding sympathetically to peers who are in need, upset, hurt, or angry; and in expressing empathy or caring to others.

Reading the Story

Tell the children that the story today is about a girl named Sophie. Hold up the cover of the book. How do you think Sophie is feeling? What are some things that make you feel this way? Introduce the book.

Social & Emotional Development/Self-Concept; begins to develop and express awareness of self in terms of specific abilities, characteristics, and preferences. AND Language Development/Speaking & Communicating; develops increasing abilities to understand and use language to communicate information, experiences, ideas, feelings, opinions, needs, questions; and for varies other purposes.

After Reading the Story

Talk with the children about what to do when they become angry with a friend at school? (We count to 3. Say give it back, we can tell the teacher, I say you are not my friend anymore). It’s ok to feel angry but it’s not ok to hurt people. What is your classroom protocol? (i.e.; Stop, count to 10. Say what is wrong. Tell what you want). Talk with the children about how you would like to see them handle problems. Have the children help act out how your classroom would ideally handle problems.

Social & Emotional Development/Self-Control; shows progress in expressing feelings, needs, and opinions in difficult situations and conflicts without harming themselves, others, or property.

Music and Movement

Sing; If You Are Happy and You Know It. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=13wd8KvOt58 Make up verses that sing about different emotions. Encourage the children to make the facial expressions accordingly. (If you’re angry and you know it stomp your fist, If you’re sad and you know it wipe your tears).

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

Play Bruno Mars Happy https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MOWDb2TBYDg song and dance!

Creative Arts/Movement; expresses through movement and dancing what is felt and heard in various musical tempos and styles.

Give the children cues on how to move. If they can think of no movements, demonstrate for them to follow. Suggest that they move like; they are really, really angry, move like you are scared of something, move like you are so excited because you just got a present you always wanted, move like you are sleepy and can hardly stay awake.

Language Development/Listening & Understanding; shows progress in understanding and following simple and multiple-step directions.

Discovery

Make a volcano. As you are making your volcano, ask the children if they can remember what happened to Sophie when she exploded. Ask them if they can guess, hypothesis, what will happen when you mix the volcano ingredients in the soda bottle. Take the children out on the playground and have them help you big a giant sand mountain. Put a soda bottle into the center of the volcano with the top exposed. Fill the soda bottle up ¾ with warm water. Add 2 tablespoons of baking soda. Fill the rest of the bottle with vinegar. Step back and count down for the eruption!

Science/Scientific Knowledge; shows increased awareness and beginning understanding of changes in materials and cause-effect relationships.

Blocks

Today would be a good day to allow the children to build with blocks and then knock them down. If you have foam or cardboard blocks, encourage the children to build as tall as they like and then knock down only their structure. If you have only wooden blocks, you will need to set up very specific ground rules such as you can build no higher than your waist and must take turns knocking the structure down when your friends are cleared from being hit by falling blocks.

Social & Emotional Development/Self-Control; demonstrates increasing capacity to follow rules and routines and use materials purposefully, safely, and respectfully. AND Health & Physical Development/Fine Motor Skills; grows in eye-hand coordination in building with blocks, putting together puzzles, reproducing patterns and shapes, stringing beads, and using scissors.

Art

Make trees. Cut out tree trunks and let the children glue them to a sheet of paper. Put out strips of colored paper ½ inch wide by the length of the construction paper. The children can take scissors and snip the strips and then glue the snips to the tree for leaves.

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

Sand and Water

Water play can be very soothing for children. Put out water today and let the children scoop and pour.

Social & Emotional Development/Cooperation; increases abilities to sustain interactions with peers by helping, sharing, and discussion.

Library and Writing

Give each child a paper with a blank head on it. Ask the child to draw what angry looks like. Let the child share ideas of what makes him/her angry and write it underneath their angry face.

Literacy/Early Writing; begins to represent stories and experiences through pictures, dictations, and in play.

Dramatic Play

Encourage the children to play house and work together so no one gets their feelings hurt and everyone feels welcomed.

Social & Emotional Development/Social Relationships; Shows progress in developing friendships with peers.

Math and Manipulaties

Any puzzles that you have that show emotion. As the children put the puzzles together talk about the people’s expressions. Can you tell how they feel? What makes you feel that way? If you do not have puzzles, you can still let the children do puzzles today and you observe their body language as they put the puzzles together. Comment on their emotions. (Ryan, you look frustrated, would you like some help? Alison, you finished that puzzle all by yourself, you must feel proud. Roger, you have done that puzzle three times now, you must be feeling confident).

Approaches to Learning/Engagement & Persistence; grows in abilities to persist in and complete a variety of task, activities, projects, and experiences.

Outdoor Play

Run, run, run, run, and run. Then sit down and relax and enjoy the nature your playground provides. While they are sitting and cooling down, make an awareness of how their breathing and heartbeat have changed. Remind them that it is important to work their heart muscle everyday.

Physical Health & Development/Gross Motor Skills; shows increasing levels of proficiency, control, and balance in walking, climbing, running, jumping, hopping, skipping, marching, and galloping. AND Science/Scientific Knowledge; expands knowledge of and respect for their bodies and the environment.

Transitions

In the story, Sophie lets out a “red, red, roar!”. Let each child let out a red, red roar as they go to the next activity.

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

Dear Parents, today we read a story about a little girl who gets very angry. We then talked about ways to defuse anger. Ask your child if they can think of ways that they can defuse anger at home. Encourage them to think of multiple solutions. Then ask them which one they would like to try next time they get really, really angry.

Resources

Little Blue Truck Leads the Way, by Alice Schertle

Little Blue truck is bringing lettuce into the city. The city is big and moves quickly. In this story Little Blue Truck saves a rush hour nightmare and gets the lettuce delivered to the people.

Materials

Several small paper plates
5-8 Matchbox or other smaller type car
Rhyming word cards
Night and day cards
Truck Picture
Several dish towels or old bath towels

Vocabulary

Wrangle-to argue
Transportation-a way to get from here to there

Before Reading the Story

Tell the children that your story today is about a truck that is going to the city. Explain that a truck is a kind of transportation. Ask the children to think of all the different kinds of transportation that they can. Write them on a sheet of paper and hang it on the wall.

Language Development/Listening & Understanding;understands an increasingly complex and varied vocabulary. AND Mathematics/Patterns & Measurement; Begins to make comparisons among several objects based on a single attribute.

Reading the Story

On the first page with words (Horn went Beep) read the sign City Limits to the children and ask them if they can tell what time of day it is. Point out the stars; the auto lights, the city lights, and skunks are generally nocturnal. When you get to the page with the double decker bus, stop and ask the children how it makes them feel (I think he’s mad! It looks mean. It’s got frowny teeth.). On the page with the traffic jam and everybody starts to shout and wrangle, ask the children what they think is going to happen. On the page where the mayor is handing out the boxes of lettuce, ask the children if they know why the truck was in the city (it is delivering lettuce from the farm to the store)

Science/Scientific Knowledge; expands knowledge of and abilities to observe, describe, and discuss the natural world, materials, living things, and natural processes. AND 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

Turn to the page where there is the traffic jam and all the vehicles are in a tangle. Ask the children if they can remember what the faces of the many cars and trucks looked like (frowns, anger, mean). If not flip back a page or two so the children can see the vehicle faces. Ask them why they think the vehicles all looked so angry (they were stuck in traffic and nobody can move). Ask has this ever happened to you? Now ask who can remember how the problem was fixed (they all took turns, they cooperated). Give some examples of how the children have taken turns recently or cooperated with each other to get a job done (Remember when everybody clogged the drinking fountain yesterday? We had to get in line and take turns. This morning when Clarissa came to school, she waited until Lee hung his coat up before she tried to get past him). Remind the children that we take turns and cooperate with each other to stay safe and so everybody can have fun at school. This conversation has lead to discussing bullying in the classroom. If your class goes in this direction, allow them to talk about it without naming names. “I hear it makes you mad when someone pushes you out of the way”. “I hear it upsets you when another child takes a toy away from you”. If your discussion goes in this direction, make sure to let the children know that they can ask you or any other adult for help.

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. AND Social & Emotional Development/Cooperation; shows increasing abilities to use compromise and discussion in working, playing, and resolving conflicts with peers.

Discovery

Have the children sort the day and night cards.

Mathematics/Patterns & Measurement; Begins to make comparisons among several objects based on a single attribute.

Music and Movement

Put on music that is both fast and slow and let the children dance to it. There is a fun song called Freeze by Greg and Steve (available on YouTube).

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

In the story the marching band joined the parade. Give the children instruments and have your own parade around the classroom. Can the children play their instruments very fast? Very slow? Over their heads? Behind their backs? While walking on tip toe? While sliding side to side?

Creative Arts/Music; experiments with a variety of musical instruments.

Blocks

Challenge the children to make a city out of blocks. If you have a road map, put it onto the floor and encourage the children to make city skyscrapers along it. If you do not have a road, use a piece of chalk or masking tape to mark out several roads on the floor for the children to build around.

Approaches to Learning/Engagement & Persistence; grows in abilities to persist in and complete a variety of tasks, activities, projects, and experiences. AND 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.

Art

Let the children paint with small cars today. Put out large sheets of construction paper and plates of paint in various colors. Put a small car (matchbox) in each color of paint. The children drive the car through the paint and then onto their picture. While they are painting, talk to them about where they might be driving their car and about auto safety rules.

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. AND Physical Health & Development/Health Status & Practices; builds awareness and ability to follow basic health and safety rules such as fire safety, traffic and pedestrian safety, and responding appropriately to potentially harmful objects, substances, and activities.

Sand and Water

Put baby dolls in with water today. Add several towels for the children to dry the babies after they give them a bath.

Creative Arts/Dramatic Play; participates in a variety of dramatic play activities that become more extended and complex.

Library and Writing

Put out many non-fiction books about transportation that you might have.

Literacy/Book Knowledge & Appreciation; shows growing interest in reading related activities; such as having a favorite story read; choosing to look at books; drawing pictures based on stories; asking to take books home; going to the library; and engaging in pretend reading with other children.

Remind the children that in the story that there were many rhyming words, read a page or two to the children so they can hear the rhyming. Put out rhyming word cards for the children to sort and match.

Literacy/Phonological Awareness; progresses in recognizing matching sounds and rhymes in familiar words, games, songs, stories, and poems.

Dramatic Play

Put out some props that the children can use to pretend to fix cars and trucks. A chair can become a car and a box as a toolbox with some of the following items inside; flashlight, rag, screwdriver, old keys, gloves, an air pump, and a wrench.

Social & Emotional Development/Knowledge of Families & Communities; develops growing awareness of jobs and what is required to perform them.

Math and Manipulatives

Give each child a little blue truck picture. They can color it and then cut out pictures of things that they would like to deliver to the school. This works well if you give the children old school supplies catalogs. It’s fun to see what things the children would like to deliver to the school.

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

Outdoor Play

Play Follow the Leader. As you lead the children around the playground doing various gross motors, find places where you can have a traffic jam. At this point have another become the leader and everybody follow them about. When you are ready for a new leader, find a crowded place and have another traffic jam. (On my playground there are several trees near the fence. If everybody tries to get around and beside these trees, it gets very crowded).

Social & Emotional Development/Cooperation; develops increasing abilities to give and take in interactions; to take turns in games and using materials; and to interact with others without being overly submissive or directive.

Transitions

As the children line up, ask the first child to step into line. Ask the next child to get first in line. Ask the next child to get last in line. Ask the next child to get first in line, etc. until all the children are lined up by being called to go either first or last.

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, behind.

Dear Parent, today we read a story where everybody was in a hurry and became angry. Remember that there are times when it is healthy to slow down and take your time. When everybody works together, it all works out better in the end.