Today is Monday, by Eric Carle

This is a fun book to help children learn the days of the week. It can be put to song for added enjoyment. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vKejkbxg-KE

Materials

Oil pastels

Vocabulary

Week (a 7 day period that usually begins on Monday).

Before Reading the Story

Talk about your class calendar. Ask the children if they can tell you what a week is. Find an event on your calendar and count how many more weeks until you are there. (In 2 weeks we are going to visit the library). Tell the children that the story today is about the days of the week. Ask the children if they can name the days, point to the calendar as they name.

Mathematics/Number & Operation; demonstrates increasing interest and awareness of numbers and counting as a means for solving problems and determining quantities. AND Mathematics/Patterns & Measurement; shows progress in using standard and non-standard measures for length and area of objects.

Reading the Story

Stop on each page and have the children name the animal on the page and any features they may know about it. (The bird/pelican has a big mouth to catch the fish in).

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

After Reading the Story

Who can remember what the porcupine ate? How about the elephant?

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.

Discovery

While eating meals today, discuss with the children what you are eating, where it comes from, and any other form of the product. (We are eating pizza today. Did you know that cheese comes from cows? And the dough of the pizza is a kind of bread. See this red sauce, guess what this is made from?).

Science/Scientific Knowledge; expands knowledge of and abilities to observe, describe, and discuss the natural world, materials, living things, and natural processes. AND Science/Scientific Knowledge; shows increased awareness and beginning understanding of changes of materials and cause-effect relationships.

Music and Movement

Sing the Days of the Week song. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3tx0rvuXIRg&list=PL23kAfsAb8s1DlveAZNkdDdam7A427kgM

Mathematics/Patterns & Measurement; shows progress in using standard and non-standard measures for length and area of objects.

Sing I Love to Eat Apples and Bananas. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a4AOHOdJ1Bk

I love to eat, I love to eat, I love to eat

Apples and bananas.

I love to eat, I love to eat, I love to eat

Apples and bananas.

(Each verse sing all the vowels in the same long A, short A, long E, short E, etc)

Literacy/Phonological Awareness; shows increasing ability to discriminate and identify sounds in spoken language

Sing Aiken Drum https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KcC4_km61aU

There was a man that lived on the moon, lived on the moon, lived on the moon.

There was a man that lived on the moon and his name was Aiken Drum.

And he played upon the guitar, the guitar, the guitar,

He played upon the guitar and his name was Aiken Drum.

Well his hat was made of (child names a food type), of ___, of ____

His hat was made of _____ and his name was Aiken Drum.

Continue to name clothing articles and foods. Sing the chorus in between and have the children pretend to strum a guitar.

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

Blocks

Make a road and add several trucks. If you do not have large trucks, shoeboxes will work. Encourage the children to build a grocery store. The children can use the trucks to deliver foods to the stores.

Social & Emotional Development/Knowledge of Families & Communities; develops growing awareness of jobs and what is required to perform them. AND Creative Arts/Dramatic Play; shows growing creativity and imagination in using materials and in assuming different roles in dramatic play situations.

Art

Ask the children what their favorite food is or a food that they might like to draw. Let them use oil pastels to draw. Afterwards show them how to use watercolors to wash over their drawings. Let dry and then cut out and mount on dark paper to make the colors stand out. (I have drawn simple vegies and fruits for the children with black marker for them to decorate with the oil pastels).

Creative Ars/Art; gains ability to use different art media and materials in a variety of ways for creative expression and representation. AND Social & Emotional Development/Self-Concept; begins to develop and express awareness of self in terms of specific abilities, characteristics, and preferences.

Writing and Library

Use the calendar to count days in a week, Mondays in the month, or how many days to number 10? Can the children recognize any of the numbers? Can they copy or write any of the numbers on paper?

Mathematics/Number & Operations; Begins to associate number concepts, vocabulary, quantities, and written numerals in meaningful ways. AND Literacy/Early Writing; experiments with a growing variety of tools and materials, such as pencils, crayons, and computers.

Sand and Water

Put water and some bubbles in the table today along with dishes for the children to wash. Add a bucket for rinse water and several towels for drying. Tell the children what a good job they have done making the dishes squeaky clean.

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

Dramatic Play

It’s a good day to do some real or pretend cooking.

Creative Arts/Dramatic PLay; participates in a variety of dramatic play activities that become more extended and complex. AND Approaches to Learning/Initiative & Curiosity; approaches tasks and activities with increased flexibility, imagination, and inventiveness.

Math and Manipulatives

Any food puzzles that you have. Or make some by taking pictures of food and cutting into halves and quarters for the children to reassemble.

Mathematics/Geometry & Spatial Sense; progresses in ability to put together and take apart shapes. AND Physical Health & Development/Fine Motor Skills; grows in hand-eye coordination in building with blocks, putting together puzzles, reproducing shapes and patterns, stinging beads, and using scissors.

Outdoors

Play categories. The teacher names a category and the children must think up appropriate responses. This can be done to go down the slide, around the path on the bicycle, or any other activity that requires a line. (Name foods that are good for breakfast, name foods that have to be kept in the refrigerator, name foods we eat at school).

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. AND Approaches to Learning/Reasoning & Problem Solving; develops increasing abilities to classify, compare, and contrast objects, events, and experiences.

Transitions

As the children move to the next activity, have them think of foods that begin with a certain letter (name foods that begin with the letter H; hamburger, humus, happy meal, ham sandwich, hot sauce/M; mashed potatoes, mustard, marshmallow). For younger children they could think of their favorite food and then help them recognize the letter that it starts with.

Literacy/Phonological Awareness; associates sounds with written words, such as awareness that different words begin with the same sound. AND Literacy/Alphabet Knowledge; shows progress in associating the names of letters with their shapes and sounds.

Resources

Make food puzzles from labels, pictures, or your own creative self

Dear Parent-Today we read a story about eating different foods on different days of the week. You can extend this story by asking your child to suggest a food to eat on Monday night or Tuesday morning for breakfast. Talk with them about different kinds of foods. What did you eat for lunch today at school? What is your favorite flavor of popsicle?

Owl Babies, by Martin Waddell

When the baby owls wake up in the middle of the night, their mother is gone! The babies are scared, where could she be?

Materials

A good picture of an owl that shows detail (calendar, internet, natural magazine)
Bag of colored feathers
Owl head pattern for paper bag puppet
Paper lunch sack, one per child
Cut out a large tree with several branches. Cut out three leaves per child.
Grocery list or flyers
Snapping clothes pins, several
Box of large paper clips
Several hoola hoops or string circles

Vocabulary

Beak (the mouth of a bird)
Brave (to show courage even when you are afraid or nervous)
Owlet (a baby owl)
Talons (the hooked claws found on the owls feet)

Before Reading the Story

Show the children the cover of the book. Does anyone know the name of this kind of bird? Ask them if they can tell what time of day it is. Look at the baby owl’s eyes. How do you think they feel? They look scared. What do you think made them afraid?

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

Reading the Story

Read adding inflection so the children can hear a bit of fear in your voice. Encourage the children to say Bill’s line with him, “I want my Mommy!”

Literacy/Book Knowledge & Appreciation; shows growing interest in reading related activities, such as asking to have a favorite book 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.

After Reading the Book

Lead a discussion into ‘being afraid’. Have you ever been afraid? What did you do? Do you know what it means to be brave? Think of a time when you were brave (I got a shot and didn’t cry, My Dad took the wheels off my bicycle and told me to ride on only two, The dog came in my yard and I was outside).

Language Development/Speaking & Communicating; uses an increasingly complex and varied spoken vocabulary.

Discovery

Find a detailed picture of an owl. Talk with the children about the picture. Look at the owl’s eyes, why do you think they are so big (to be able to see at night), Did you know owls cannot move their eyes, they have to turn their heads. Look at the owls’ beak, why do you think it is so sharp? (To eat meat) What do we use to eat meat? Look at the owl’s feet, why do you think their nails are so sharp? Their feet are called talons. Continue to look at the owl and see if the children can compare owls to people and how they are alike and different.

Science/Scientific Knowledge; expands knowledge of and abilities to observe, describe, and discuss the natural world, materials, living things, and natural processes. AND Approaches to Learning/Reasoning & Problem Solving; develops increasing abilities to classify, compare, and contrast objects, events, and experiences.

Music and Movement

Put several hoola hoops on the floor. Each hoop should be able to hold several children. Have the children practice flying and swooping from one hoop to the next. Make sure you practice woo, wooing also.

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

Teach the poem, Wide-Eyed Owl

Wide-Eyed Owl

Here’s a wide-eyed owl

With a pointed beak

And claws upon his toes.

He lives up high in the tree.

He turns his head to look at me.

He flaps his wings

And says whoo,whoo,whoo.

(Act out accordingly)

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

Blocks

The owl family lived in a tree in the forest. Encourage the children to recreate the forest by standing many varied blocks up on end. Can they stack one upon the other, can they stack three?

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

Use the owl head and glue it to a paper lunch sack. Put out many colored feathers and let the children glue them on to the bag to make an owl puppet. For a less structured art project, just put out the feathers and let the children make a feather collage.

Creative Arts/Art; gains ability in using different art media and materials in a variety of ways for creative expression and representation.

Sand and Water

With sand in table, add many small animal counters or small items. Show the children how to open the clothespins and grab an animal. Put a small basket beside the table and the children can move the animals they “catch with their owl beak” and put them in the basket.

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

Library and Writing

Ask the child to take a leaf and write their name on it. Then add a piece of tape and give the child a positional direction of where to tape it to the tree. (Put your leaf under a branch, at the top of the tree, next to Kerry’s leaf, on the left side of the tree).

Literacy/Early Writing; progresses from using scribbles, shapes, or pictures to represent ideas, to using letter-like symbols, to copying or writing familiar words such as their own name. AND 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.

Dramatic Play

Put grocery lists and grocery fliers into the center and encourage the children to pretend that they are getting ready to go to the grocery store. Will the baby dolls go with to the store or will they stay at home? Who will they stay home with? Ask the children if their parents have ever left home without them. Did someone come to stay with you? Who? What did you do?

Math and Manipulatives

Have the children count out 8 paperclips. Tell them that these are the talons for their owl puppet. Have them slip them onto the bottom of the paper bag and count as they put them on.

Mathematics/Number & Operations; begins to make use of one-to-one correspondence in counting objects and matching groups of objects. 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.

Outdoor Play

Tell the children that they are going to be owl families. Pick several children to be the owlets. They must stay together while their parents go to gather food for them. Have the parent owls’ swoop around the playground picking up sticks (mice and snakes) to bring back to their babies to eat. The babies can hoot while they wait for their parents.

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

Transitions

Give each child a colored feather. Have them use the feather to find something else in the room that is the same color. They can fly around the room looking for objects. After a short amount of time they can gather back at the carpet. As they go off to the next activity they can tell you the color name of their objects, the names of the objects themselves, and how many objects they were able to find.

Approaches to Learning/Reasoning & Problem Solving; develops an increasing ability to find more than one solution to a question, task, or problem. AND Mathematics/Geometry & Spatial Sense; shows growth in matching, sorting, putting in a series, and regrouping objects according to one or two attributes such as color, shape, or size.

Dear Parent-

Today we talked about owls. Go for a walk with your child and look for other kinds of birds that are in your neighborhood. Teach your child the names of one or two of these bird species and how to identify them (That’s a cardinal, he is red all over. That’s a Robin Red Breast because his belly and breast area are the color red).

Resources

On Monday When It Rained, by Cherryl Kachenmeister

Each day the narrator talks about an event that brought about an emotion. This book offers simple explanations for a variety of emotions.

Materials

One or two mirrors
One paint stir stick per child (these can be found at any place that sells paint).
Copy of the Emotion game

Vocabulary

Before Reading the Story

Play Thumbs Up/Thumbs Down with the children. Give a scenario and ask the children if they think this is a thumbs up (kind thing to do) or thumbs down (not kind thing to do). Examples; Ann wants to ride the bike so she goes in front of Michael and tries to pull him off the bike. Ann is playing in the block center and Michael asks her if he can help build a tower. When Michael asks Ann, she says yes. When Ann says she wants a turn on the swing, Michael tells her “you can be next when I am finished”,he then calls her when he gets off the swing. Ann bumps into Michael when they are playing and says she is sorry. Note; young children do not always know right from wrong so you may have to talk about some of your questions and teach them positive social responses.

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

Stop on each page where the boy talks about his experience and ask the children if they can guess how he feels. When you turn to the page where he names a feeling, ask the children to copy the same facial expression. After reading the last page, ask the children what they think the boy was wondering about? If they give answers such as “What will I play with today?” or “Who will be my friend?”, ask them how it makes them feel.

After Reading the Story

Open up the book to a page where the boy names an emotion. Ask the children if they have ever felt this way. Allow them time to tell their story about the emotion. (When my Mommy turns off my night light I get scared. When Johnny told me I couldn’t play with him I felt sad).

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

Discovery

Put mirrors out along with the book and encourage the children to practice making the facial expression in the mirror, As they play, help them to name the emotion. “Oh, that face looks really angry”. “When you do that you look like you are feeling silly and having fun”.

Approaches to Learning/grows in abilities to persist in and complete a variety of tasks, activities, projects, and experiences. AND Approaches to Learning/Reasoning & Problem Solving; develops increasing abilities to classify, compare, and contrast objects, events, and experiences.

Music and Movement

Sing or chant any days of the week song you might know. Point to your class calendar as you sing.

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

Sing If You’re Happy and You Know It changing up the verses to sing and act out different emotions. Ask for the children’s input upon how to act out the emotion (angry-kick foot, stomp fist, jump up and down).

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

Blocks

If room allows, do not put the children’s block structures away but leave them up for tomorrow. Allow the children to continue to build upon yesterday’s block structures for several days. As they continue to build use the words; yesterday, today, and tomorrow.

Science/Scientific Knowledge; develops growing awareness of ideas and language related to attributes of time and temperature.

Art

Give each child a paint stir stick and explain that today you are going to paint one side and tomorrow when it is dry you will paint the other. Show the children how to paint stripes onto their paint stir stick but allow to paint anyway that the child chooses. After the second side has dried, drill a hole in one end and hang as a cluster from the ceiling using string or yarn.

Creative Arts/Art; develops growing abilities to plan, work independently, and demonstrate care and persistence in a variety of art projects.

Sand and Water

Water is often very calming to children. Put warm water into the table today and allow the children to choose what equipment they will add.

Science/Scientific Knowledge; develops growing awareness of ideas and language related to attributes of time and temperature.

Library and Writing

Encourage the children to draw a picture about something that they did at school today or at home. After they are finished, ask them to tell you about it as you write their words onto a piece of paper. After their story ask them how it made them feel and write; I felt ______ as the last line of your dictation. Attach their story to their picture.

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

Dramatic Play

Watch the dramatic center closely today and help the children to identify the emotions that each is feeling. Is someone being left out of the play? Is someone bossing everyone around? Help the children to see how their actions affect the emotions of others. And then help the children find positive ways to be included and to share the role playing with others.

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

Math and Manipulatives

Make a copy of the Emotion game. Give each child a small manipulative to use as a marker. Take turns rolling a dice and moving your man forward. If you land on a face card, you must make the face, name the emotion, or tell something that makes you feel that way.

Social & Emotional Development/Cooperation; develops increasing abilities to give and take in interactions; to take turns in games or using materials; and to interact without being overly submissive or directive. AND Approaches to Learning/Reasoning & Problem Solving; develops increasing ability to find more than one solution to a question, task, or problem.

Outdoor Play

With chalk, draw 7 squares onto the cement that are large enough for the children to jump into. Show them how to sing your days of the week song as they jump from square to square. Challenge them to jump forward, backward, like a frog, and hop on the squares as they say/sing the days of the week.

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

Transitions

Pull out your classroom calendar and talk to the children about upcoming events. Count how many days until the event. Show the children today on the calendar and then point to tomorrow and tell them what day it will be. Show the children yesterday on the calendar and tell them what day that was. Ask them if they can recall anything they did or ate yesterday.

Science/Scientific Knowledge; develops growing awareness of ideas and language related to attributes of time and temperature.

Dear Parent- Today we talked about the days of the week. This is a difficult subject for young children because many do not fully understand the concept of time. You can help your child by sharing your family calendar. Help your child count the days to upcoming events, talk about what you did yesterday(remember yesterday when grandma called?), and what might be happening tomorrow (tomorrow I am making spaghetti for supper).

Resources