May I Bring A Friend? By Beatrice Schenk De Regniers

A little boy is invited to tea with the king and queen. He does not want to come alone and asks if he may bring his friends. This fun story is told in rhyme.

Materials

Animal Graph (the graph pictures were copied from a 5 year olds art)
Large pitcher and several herbal tea bags such as peppermint or lemon
One sheet of yellow construction paper per child to make a giraffe

Vocabulary

Evaporate (vanish/disappear, as into the dry sand)
Zoo (a home where many wild animals live)

Introducing the Story

Ask the children if they have ever invited a friend over to their house for a meal or to play. Allow them a few minutes to talk about any experiences they might have had. If you do not get any responses, tell the children about a time you invited someone over for a meal. Steer the conversation towards friendship and how sharing time together is fun whether at school or at home.

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

On the pages where the boy says, “So I brought a friend”, pause and encourage the children to say it along with you. Then turn the page and see if the children can name the animal that the boy brought along.

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

After Reading the Story

Challenge the children to name all the animals that were in the story today. Ask them where all the animals might live? Ask if anyone has ever been to the zoo? Give the children a moment to talk about any zoo experiences that they have had. Make a graph of all the animals that were in the story today and ask each child which one is their favorite. Write their name under the animal picture and hang on the wall. Count the votes for each animal and write the number beside.

Literacy/Book Knowledge & Appreciation; shows growing interest and involvement in listening to and discussing a variety of fiction and non-fiction books and poetry AND Mathematics/Number & Operations; Begins to associate number concepts, vocabulary, quantities, and written numerals in meaningful ways.

Music and Movement

Sing your days of the week song with the children. If you do not have a song you sing, make up a chant and teach it to them.

Mon-day, Tues-day,

Wednes-day, Thurs-day, Fri-day.

Sat-ur-day, Sun-day

The days of the week

(clap out the syllables as you sing or chant)

Literacy/Phonological Awareness; shows growing ability to hear and discriminate separate syllables in words.

Put on some music and do animal walks. Jump like a kangaroo, lumber like an elephant, use your hands to pull you like a seal, jump around like a monkey, stand on one leg like a flamingo, gallop like a horse.

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

Discovery

Remind the children that on Sunday the King and Queen invited the boy to come for tea. Fill a large pitcher with water and add 4-6 herbal tea bags. Explain to the children that you are going to make sun-tea. Put the pitcher out, covered, somewhere where there is some sun and let the children watch as the tea infuses into the water changing the color. Give it an hour or two and then let the children sample.

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

Blocks

Add animals to the center today. Encourage the children to make cages/fences and sort the animals by like kinds.

Mathematics/Geometry & Operations; shows growth in matching, sorting, putting in series, and regrouping objects according to one or two attributes such as color, shape, or size.

Art

Tell the children that today you are going to make giraffes with long necks like the one that came for tea. Holding piece of construction paper the tall way, draw a line from top to bottom about 4 inches from the side. On the other part of the paper draw an oval. Let the children cut along the lines making a long strip and an oval. Show them how to attach the oval to the top of the strip, this is the giraffe’s head. Put out small plates of paint and show the children how to dip their finger and stamp up and down, up and down. These will become the spots of the giraffe. Have the children add a face with markers or paint.

Physical Health & Development/Fine Motor Skills; develops growing strength, dexterity, and control needed to use tools such as scissors, paper punch, stapler, and hammer. AND Language Development/Listening & Understanding; shows progress in understanding and following simple and multi-step directions.

Sand and Water

Ask the children if they can remember which animal in the story likes to swim in water most of the day (Seal). Tell the children they can be like the seals today and play in the water. Put out your favorite water table toys today and let the children enjoy playing in it.

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.

Library and Writing

On index cards, write the names of the children in your classroom, one per card. Encourage the children to find their name and their friends name and to practice writing them on their paper.

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.

Dramatic Play

Encourage the children to pretend to cook today. As they are playing, ask them, “May I bring a friend?” and allow another child who might be interested to join the play. Challenge them to think about what they need to do to make room for another child in the center. Do they need more chairs, plates, etc.? Let the center fill up with more children than are normally allowed to play. What do they need to do to accommodate any extra friends? Watch carefully if the center starts to get too crowded and encourage them to problem solve instead of fight. We only have 5 plates but there are 6 of you, what should we do? (When I have done this, I have had children volunteer to share a plate and chair and to also leave the center. I had one child suggest that she could eat out of a pan).

Mathematics/Number & Operations; begins to make use of one-to-one correspondence in counting objects and matching groups of objects. AND Social & Emotional Development/Cooperation; shows increasing abilities to use compromise and discussion in working, playing, and resolving conflicts with peers.

Math and Manipulatives

Use whatever classroom counters you might have. I use one-inch cubes to play. Ask the child to put 1-3 counters on the table. After they have done this, ask them to add one more. Then let the child count how many they have. Ask them to add one more and again count how many they have. Children who are able to count one more, you can ask them to add 2 more and when they get close to 10, ask them to take one away, now how many do you have?

Mathematics/Number & Operations; develops increased abilities to combine, separate and name “how many” concrete objects.

Outdoor Play

Add some water to the sandbox today and let the children experiment using damp sand to make sand cakes. Watch their faces as the water evaporates into the dry sand. Explain to them that because the sand is dry, the water evaporates into it. Add more water and see what happens.

Science/Scientific Knowledge; develops increased ability to observe and discuss common properties, differences, and comparisons among objects and materials.

Transitions

If you line up to go anywhere, ask the children if they would like to call a friend to join them. When there is only one child left say, “Oh good, a friend for me” and let that child be in line with you.

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.

Dear Parents- Today we read a story about a boy and his friends. Ask your child who some of the boys friends were. Then ask them to tell you about who some of their friends are at school and what they enjoy doing together.

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