Yoko, by Rosemary Wells

Yoko’s mother packs her a special lunch filled with Yoko’s favorite foods. Sadly, her friends make fun of her for bringing something different. Find out how her teacher plans a special meal so that everyone can celebrate their differences. WIll her friends try her food? Read the book to find out.

Materials

Lunch bag or lunch box

Hand held egg beater, whisks, ladle.

Printable menu cut and staple, or cover with contact paper and use markers to write on

Pictures of children acting kind/not kind

For a Cooking Project if school allows; Crescent roll, unbaked, one per child. Cinnamon and sugar Soften stick of butter or margarine

Vocabulary

Delicious (Really super yummy tasting)

Sushi (a kind of food made with rice and other stuff rolled and then cut into slices)

Before Reading the Story

Bring your lunch bag to the carpet today and ask the children if they know what it is? Ask them to share with you some of their favorite lunches. (I like when cook makes macaroni and cheese. I like sandwiches with ketchup. Soup). Talk about how everybody has their favorite foods and that is good. Tell the children that once you thought you did not like a certain food (your choice) because you thought it looked funny but then you tried it and it was delicious. (One time my Mom gave me sweet potato fries but they were orange and looked funny. She said try just one bite and I did and they were delicious!) Explain that it’s not fair to say you do not like something until you have tried it once because you just might decide it’s delicious just like I did.

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

Reading the Story

On the page where Yoko’s mother is spreading the steamed rice on the bamboo mat, ask the children if they know what she is making? Show the children a picture of a real sushi roll.

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

On the page where Yoko’s friends are teasing her about her lunch and Valerie says, “Everybody out!” Ask the children to look at Yoko’s face and ask how do you think Yoko is feeling? Why? (Her friends were mean, no one liked her lunch). What might you have said to Yoko to make her feel less sad? What do you think her teacher is going to do?

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

On the page where no one had even tried one piece of Yoko’s sushi, ask the children what they think is going to happen next?

After Reading the Story

In the story, Timothy was a good friend, why?

Discovery

Explain to the children that today you are going to try a new recipe with the children On a small paper plate give each child one triangle of crescent roll, a small pat of butter and a plastic knife. Have the children spread the softened butter on the crescent roll. Next let them sprinkle a little bit of sugar and a little bit of cinnamon onto their crescent roll. Have them roll it up and send to the kitchen to be baked according to the directions. As you work, ask the children if they can guess what the various ingredients are? Does it look and smell delicious to you? Remind them that just like in the story, everyone needs to at least try one bite. When they are cooked, use them for snack or as part of your lunch.

Language Development/Listening & Understanding; shows progress in understanding and following multiple-step directions. AND Social & Emotional Development; Self-Concept; begins to develop and express awareness of self in terms of specific abilities, characteristics, and preferences.

Music and Movement

Sing, My Friend is Different and so am I. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gO6FhOrbYIE

Sing Peace. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F62L1TaDIUk

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

Sing, Everybody Do This to Shortnin Bread https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ugoxTWwqFCI

Everybody do this do this do this

Everybody do this just like me.

(Do an action and everybody does it along with you. Pick a child and have them pick a new action-jump, turn around, kick foot in air, etc).

Everybody do this do this do this

Everybody do this just like ________

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

Play the song What I Am and let the children dance along. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cyVzjoj96vs

AND Believe in Yourself https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U59I0YTtVGg

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

Blocks

Tape several strips of masking tape to the block center wall. Challenge the children to build one as tall as the mark on the wall. After they are finished, ask them if they can count how many blocks it took them to build their tower?

Physical Health & Development/Fine Motor SKills; grows in hand-eye coordination needed in building with blocks, putting together puzzles, reproducing shapes and patterns, stringing beads, and using scissors. AND Mathematics/Number & Operations; begins to use one-to-one correspondence in counting objects and matching groups of objects.

Art

Put out playdough today and pieces of pipecleaner about 1-inch long in several colors. Show the children how to flatten out the playdough and then put the pieces of pipe cleaner on top and roll it into sushi rolls. Give them plastic knives to cut the ‘sushi’ into slices.

Creative Arts/Dramatic Play; participates in a variety of dramatic play activities that become more extended and complex. AND Physical Health & Development/Fine Motor Skills; develops strength, dexterity, and control needed to use tools such as scissors, stapler, paper punch, and hammer

Library and Writing

Ask each child to answer, “What is a Friend?” Write their answers on the bottom of a piece of paper and encourage them to draw their response.

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

Sand and Water

Add water and liquid soap to the table today. Add a hand held egg beater, whisks , and ladles for the children to make bubbles. Comment on the various tools and ask which one the child likes using most. Not everyone agrees on their favorite but we are still friends and can cooperate with each other.

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

Dramatic Play

Set up a simple restaurant play by adding a cash register, menus, and scribble pad.

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

Math and Manipulatives

Put out two paper plates or pieces of paper. On one draw a happy face and on the other draw a sad face. Print and cut out the pictures of children being kind/not being kind and let the children sort them. Talk about one or two of the pictures with a child and let them tell you what they see and /or their own experience with kind and not so kind acts.

Mathematics/Patterns & Measurement; shows increasing ability to match,sort, put in a series, and regroup objects according to one or two attributes such as shape or size. AND Social & Emotional Development/Social Relationships; progresses in responding sympathetically to peers who are in need, upset, hurt, or angry; and in expressing empathy and caring for others.

Outdoor Play

Do the song Everybody Do This but with larger outdoor movements

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

Draw in the dirt with sticks or on the cement with chalk. Encourage the children to work on drawing their letters or shapes.

Physical Health & Development/FIne Motor Skills; progresses in abilities to use writing, drawing, and art tools, including pencils, markers, chalk, paint brushes, and various types of technology.

Transitions

Dismiss the children to the next activity by the clothes that they are wearing. If you are wearing stripes, have numbers on your shirt, have a pocket, your shoes have buckles, your shirt is sleeveless, etc..

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

Resources

Too Many Pears! by Jackie French

This is a book to teach children about fruit, especially pears. Pamela the cow just can’t seem to get enough pears. This is a fun book to help the children try to problem solve how to stop Pamela from eating all the pears!

Materials

Several pears and a plastic knife to cut.
Pretty bowl
Bag of pom poms, several tongs/tweezers, and bowls
Several Place setting pictures with parts cut out separately
Model for outside jumping game, see resources

Vocabulary

Orchard (a place where fruit and or nut trees grow.)

Before Reading the Story

Begin a discussion about favorite foods. Ask the children what happens if they eat too much food (I throw up, my belly gets hurting, I burp really, really loud). Show and read the children the cover of the book. Ask them how they think Pamela is feeling, why?

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

Slowly read the cover of the book sounding out the words. Watch to see if any children are able to recognize beginning letters and their sounds.

Literacy/Phonological Awareness; shows growing awareness of beginning and ending sounds in words.

Reading the Story

Stop when you get to the page where Pamela is tied to a tree. Ask the children to help think of ways to keep Pamela from eating all the pears. Write their ideas down on chart paper.

After Reading the Story

Bring in a pear so that the children can try a small piece. Make a graph that shows I like pears/I do not like pears. The children can write their name on the corresponding side after they taste the pear. After all the children have put their name on the pear graph, ask them if more or less children liked the pears. How many children in total said they liked pears?

Mathematics/Patterns & Measurement; begins to make comparisons between several objects based on one or two attributes. AND Literacy/Early Writing; progresses from using scribbles, shapes, or pictures to represent ideas, to using letter-like symbols, to copying and writing familiar words such as their own name.

Discovery

While you are preparing a pear for the children to taste test, pass one around so that the children may smell it and feel it. Open it up and show the children the seeds inside. Are there a lot of seeds or just a few? What color are they? Bring in two different kinds of pears, are they the same inside?

Science/Scientific Skills & Methods; begins to use senses and a variety of tools and simple measuring devices to gather information, investigate materials, and observe processes and relationships

Music and Movement

Do the Pear poem with the children. As you say the poem make up simple actions for the children to do.

Way up high in the pear tree,

Two yellow pears smiled down on me.

So I shook that tree as hard as I could

And down fell the pears and were they good!

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

Sing Where Oh Where Are All the Children, to https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NsZ6RS67oAY

Where oh where are all the children,

Where oh where are all the children?

Where oh where are all the children,

Way down yonder in the pear orchard.

Picking pears, put them in the basket,

Picking pears, put them in the basket.

Picking pears, put them in the basket

Way do yonder in the pear orchard.

(Do other fruits and vegies. My class liked cutting broccoli, pulling carrots, digging potatoes, picking up watermelon, etc.).

Creative Arts/Music; participates with increasing interest and enjoyment in a variety of music activities, including listening, singing, finger plays, games, and performances. AND Approaches to Learning/Reasoning & Problem Solving; develops increasing abilities to classify, compare, and contrast objects, events, and experiences.

Blocks

Attach 5-10 yellow pear shapes, orange orange shapes, and red apple shapes to blocks and ask the children to sort by kinds or make a pattern.

Mathematics/Patterns & Measurement; enhances abilities to recognize, duplicate, and extend simple patterns using a variety of materials.

Art

Cut out large fruit shapes and put them at the easel for the children to paint.

Physical Health & Development/Fine Motor Skills; progresses in abilities to use writing, drawing, and art tools, including pencils, markers, chalk, paint brushes, and various types of technology.

Library and Writing

Give each child a cow shape. Ask them to glue it too the paper and draw a picture about their idea to stop Pamela. Dictate. Use the chart paper from rug time to review and get the children started.

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

Sand and Water

Pour the pom poms into the table and set out the tongs and several bowls or ice cube trays. The children use the tongs to pickup the pom poms and sort them by color.

Mathematics/Patterns & Measurement; shows increasing abilities to match, sort, put in a series, and regroup objects according to one or two attributes such as color, shape, or size. AND Physical Health & Development/Fine Motor Skills; develops growing strength, dexterity, and control needed to use tools such as scissors, paper punch, stapler, and hammer.

Dramatic Play

Put all the plastic fruits into a large bowl today and put it out on the kitchen table. As the children play in dramatics today, ask them if they can name all the fruits in the bowl. Do they know where the fruits grow, a tree, a vine, or a plant?

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

Math and Manipulatives

Make several place setting pictures and cut each piece out individually (fork, spoon, knife, and plate). Tell the child that they are pretending a friend is coming to eat with them. How many place setting do you need to make? Remind them that they need to set one for themselves also. How many place settings do you need if two friends were coming over? Have the child fix the place settings making sure each gets all the parts.

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

Outdoor Play

Draw the jumping board on the cement using chalk. Instead of filling in with shapes, fill it in with simple pictures of fruits and vegies. Have a child stand at one end and name a fruit/vegie on the jumping board. The child jumps onto the correct square. Try naming 2-3 at a time and see if the child can jump from square to square in the correct order.

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

Transitions

Hold up a piece of plastic food from the dramatic center and ask a child to name it. Ask them if they can make the first sound in the word. Ask them if they can clap out the syllables of the word.

Literacy/Phonological Awareness; shows growing awareness of the beginning and ending sounds in words. AND Literacy/Phonological Awareness; shows growing ability to hear and discriminate separate syllables in words.

Resources

cut out each utensil separately. Make 3-5 sets

Draw simple fruits and vegies into each square for jumping

Too Many Pears! by Jackie French

Materials

Several pears and a plastic knife to cut.
Pretty bowl
One-inch strips of colored paper in read, yellow, and green
Many pear shapes cut from yellow, green, and red paper. (Approx 15 per child)
5-10 paint sticks (free where you buy paint) and string/yarn to hang them outside

Vocabulary

Orchard (a place where fruit and or nut trees grow.)

Before Reading the Story

Begin a discussion about favorite foods. Ask the children what happens if they eat too much food (I throw up, my belly gets hurting, I burp really, really loud). Show the children the cover of the book. Ask them how they think Pamela is feeling? Slowly read the cover of the book sounding out the words. Watch to see if any children are able to recognize beginning letters and their sounds.

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

Reading the Story

Stop when you get to the page where Pamela is tied to a tree. Ask the children to help think of ways to keep Pamela from eating all the pears. Write their ideas down on chart paper.

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

After Reading the Story

Bring in a pear so that the children can try a small piece. How does it smell and taste? Make a graph that shows I like pears/I do not like pears. The children can write their name on the corresponding side after they taste the pear. After all the children have put their name on the pear graph, ask them if more or less children liked the pears. How many children in total said they liked pears?

Science/Scientific Skills & Methods; begins to use senses and a variety of tools and simple measuring devices to gather information, investigate materials, and observe processes and relationships. AND Mathematics/Number & Operation; begins to use language to compare numbers of objects with such terms as more, less, greater than, fewer, equal to.

Discovery

Science/Scientific Skills & Methods; begins to use senses and a variety of tools and simple measuring devices to gather information, investigate materials, and observe processes and relationships.

Music and Movement

Do the Pear poem with the children. As you say the poem make up simple actions for the children to do.

Way up high in the pear tree,

Two yellow pears smiled down on me.

So I shook that tree as hard as I could

And down fell the pears and were they good!

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

Sing Where Oh Where Are All the Children?, to Way Down Yonder. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RVeFvSs9FTo

Where oh where are all the children,

Where oh where are all the children?

Where oh where are all the children,

Way down yonder in the pear orchard.

Picking pears, put them in the basket,

Picking pears, put them in the basket.

Picking pears, put them in the basket

Way do yonder in the pear orchard.

(Cutting cabbage, pulling carrots, picking strawberries, lifting watermelons, etc.)

Creative Arts/Music; participates with increasing interest and enjoyment in a variety of music activities, including listening, singing, finger plays, games, and poems. AND Science/Science Knowledge; expands knowledge of and abilities to observe, describe, and discuss the natural world, living things, materials, and natural processes.

Blocks

Attach 5-10 yellow pear shapes, orange orange shapes, and red apple shapes to blocks and ask the children to sort by kinds or make a pattern.

Mathematics/Patterns & Measurement; enhances abilities to recognize, duplicate, and extend simple patterns using a variety of materials.

Art

Cut out large fruit shapes and put them at the easel for the children to paint.

Physical Health & Development/Fine Motor Skills; progresses in abilities to use writing, drawing, and art tools, including pencils, markers, chalk, paint brushes, and various technology.

Library and Writing

Give each child a cow shape. Ask them to glue it too the paper and draw a picture about their idea to stop Pamela. Dictate. Use the chart paper from rug time to review and get the children started.

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

Sand and Water

Put the strips of colored paper into the sensory table today along with scissors. The children practice snipping squares. Gather the squares and make a class collage on a pear shape from the easel.

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

Dramatic Play

Science/Science Knowledge; expands knowledge of and abilities to observe, describe, and discuss the natural world, living things, materials, and natural processes. AND Language Development/Speaking & Communicating; uses an increasing complex and varied spoken language.

Math and Manipulatives

Put the many pear shapes out on the table with glue or paste. On a piece of per, one per child, write the numbers 1-5 going down the side. The children then glue the corresponding number of pears beside each number. Making simple number charts 1-5.

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

Outdoor Play

Hang paint sticks from tree branches on your playground. The children can jump to try to hit, throw balls at them, or use sticks to bat them.

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

Transitions

Play, What would you do? Give the children scenarios that they may encounter at school or home and let them tell what they would do. (What would you do if you saw a strange dog running around your yard? What would you do if you were hungry? What would you do if you wanted a toy that your friend has? What would you do if you saw a water bottle on the table and you were thirsty? What would you do if your friend was playing with matches? What would you do if you were playing outside and you heard thunder? What would you do if…)?

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