Robert McCloskey - Day Three Journey Cake, Ho

Reading
Preparation
Make 2 mini books and attach together on cover write "Journey Cake" and on each page write "Journey Cake went by_____."
Materials
Mini book
Journey Cake By Ruth Sawyer (Illustrated by Robert McCloskey)
Markers or Crayons
pictures of donkey, sheep, chicken, pig, goose, cow
pointer
Teaching
1.  Read Journey Cake, Ho!
2.  Read mini book Journey Cake to your child having them fill in blanks with animal, and gluing corresponding animal on page, then drawing a "journey cake."
3.  Have child read mini book to you, a stuffed animal, etc. Our video of reading this book is here.

Phonics
Preparation
Make a barnyard scene on a large piece of paper (I used 1/4 sheet of poster board)
pictures of donkey, sheep, chicken, pig, goose, cow cut out
Materials
barnyard scene
animals
Teaching

1. Say a rhyme for each animal, then have your child find the animal and have it chase "Journey Cake."
2. Examples:

"Journey cake doesn't wear a wig, what's chasing it?  It must be..." (Then your child finds the pig)
"Who is chasing journey cake now.  Look at that.  It must be _____. "(Then child finds cow, and puts it on board)
"Journey cake sings on key. Who's chasing it now?  It must be _______." (Donkey - hard one to rhyme!)
Journey cake will never sleep.  Who's chasing it now. It must be ______." (sheep)
Journey cake is on the loose.  Who's chasing it now? It must be ____."(goose)
Journey cake looks good for lickin'. Who's chasing it now?  It must be ____." (chicken, another tough rhyme).

To watch how we do it watch the video here.

Math
Preparation:
Use the same barn scene and animals from phonics lesson

Teaching
1.  Place 8 animals on barn scene.  Say, "Three animals ran away.  How many are left on the farm?
2.  Use different number combinations to create addition and subtraction problems. 
Examples:
"(5 animals on board) fox took away 5 animals.  How many are left?
"Journey cake brought back 2 geese and 2 cows.  How many animals are on the farm now?"
One cow ran away and two sheep followed journey cake back to the farm.  How many animals are there now?

Art
Preparation
Materials
Play dough or clay
Teaching
1.  Have child make animals from play dough.

Robert McCloskey - Day 2 Blueberries for Sal

Book Blueberries for Sal by Robert McCloskey

**This week we are doing books by Robert McCloskey so we will always begin with Reading instead of Phonics/Writing**

Reading

Preparation:
Materials

Blueberries for Sal  by Robert McCloskey

Teaching:

1.  Read Blueberries for Sal.
2.  Explain what characters are. Discuss which two characters are alike (mom and mother bear, Sal and little bear). How are they alike?  How are they different?

Phonics/Writing
Preparation:
Make rhyming words cards with words from the book - print words with picture, cut out and glue on to 3X5 cards

(Sal, Pal, Bear, chair, eat, feet, hill, mill, whale, pail, clue, blue)

 Materials

Rhyming Cards

Teaching:

1.  Play a matching game with your child matching the rhymes.
2.  Separate the cards into piles of "Endings look alike," and "Endings that look different."  We like to          send the endings that are spelled differently to "jail."
3.  Point to the words and talk about the different ways we spell the same sound (bear/chair, whale/pail)

**Writing - have your child practice writing the letter "B", both capital and lower case.**

Math

Preparation:

Create 2 large pictures of pails.  Draw 8 cirlces on each bucket.
Cut several circles out of blue paper that match the size of the circles on pails

Materials

Pails
Blue circles
Spinner

Teaching:

1.      You'll be playing the game "Sal's Blueberry Bucket."
2.  Take turns spinning and adding blueberries to your bucket.  WHoever fills in their 8 circles first, wins.
3.  As you play ask questions such as, "How many more blueberries do you need to win?"

Exploration

Preparation:

Materials

2 cups blueberries
1/2 cup sugar
1/2 tsp cinnamon
1 TBSP corn starch
1/4 cup water

Teaching:

1.   Place blueberries (I used frozen) in a medium saucepan.  Add sugar, cinnamon, cornstarch and toss blueberries.  Add water.  Let child help add ingredients.
2.  Have adult cook blueberries.  When cool, eat your "canned blueberries" like Sal and her mother.

Art

Preparation

Materials

paper
blue paint
white paint
black paint
paintbrush

Teaching:

1.      Show your child the Robert McCloskey books for hte week.  POInt out that McCloskey uses only 1-2 colors to draw his pictures.
2.  Have your child paint a picture using blue paint.  He can mix black or white paint into the blue to vary the shades of blue.

Robert McCloskey - Day 1 Make Way for Ducklings

Book Make Way for Ducklings by Robert McCloskey

**This week we are doing books by Robert McCloskey so we will always begin with Reading instead of Phonics/Writing**

Reading

Preparation: Materials

Mini book (directions for Mini Book Here) on cover of book write "Ducks Can! by ____________," On each page write "Ducks can ______." 

Mini book
Crayons or markers

Teaching:

1.  Point to Robert McCloskey's name on the cover of the book.  Say, "The author of a book writes the story (point to the words).  The illustrator draws the pictures (point to the pictures). This book was written and illustrated by the same person, Robert McCloskey (point to his name)."

2. Read the book to child.

3. After reading the book point again to Robert McCloskey's name and remind them that he wrote the book.  He was the author.  He was also the illustrator and drew the pictures.  Say, "You get to be an author and an illustrator today.  You're going to write a book about what ducks can do."

4.  Point to the cover of the mini book and say, "you get to writer your name here on the cover because you are the author and the illustrator."

5.  On page one point to the words, "Ducks can ____" and ask, "What can ducks do?"  Fill in the blank with your child's answer, or have them write the word with help.  Then have them draw a picture to go with text. Repeat for each page.

 

Phonics/Writing (Letter Learner) 

Preparation:
Make the "D" poem from Letter Sounds
 Materials

"D" Poem
Crayon or Marker

Teaching:

Letter Learner (Learning letters and letter sounds):

1.       Read the poem together.

2.       Have child circle capital letter "D" in one color, lower case "d" in another color.

3.       Go through each letter of the alphabet, practicing sounds. 

Phonics/Writing (Emergent Reader) 

Preparation:

 Materials

Write the letters "ack" on a piece of paper

On separate small strips of paper write letters "b," "j," "l," "m," "n," "p," "qu," "r," "s," and "t"
Teaching

1.  Show child the paper with "ack" written on it.  Sound out "ack" together.

Identify ack, saying, "This is 'ack.'  We are going to make some words by adding letters to the beginning of 'ack.'"

Add letters one at a time, having child sound out letter, then "ack."

If child dos well try putting two letters, like "sn" in front of "ack."  This is hard, and my son had a difficult time with it, but it's okay to stretch a little.  You can watch the video of how we sounded out "ack" here, and how we practiced adding blends here. 

**Writing - have your child practice writing the letter "D", both capital and lower case.**

Math

Preparation:

Pictures of 8 ducklings, cut out

Picture of Mother Duck

Paper with a hill on it, post it note stuck in the upper right hand corner

Write numbers 0-8 on separate pieces of paper

Materials

Ducks

Paper

Post it note

 

(I copied a page out of the book, cut out my ducks and created my own background)

Teaching:

1.      Sing "Five Little Ducks" with your child, except start at eight since in Make Way for Ducklings Mother Duck has eight babies. Place the number 7 in the upper left hand corner and point to it as you sing "Only seven little ducks came back." For each number that come back, place that number in the left hand corner as a representation of the written number.
2. When the baby ducks go "far away" have your child hide them behind the post it note.
3.  When the baby ducks come back have your child count out the ducks.  To see how we did it, watch the video here (sorry about my singing).

Exploration

Preparation:

Materials

day old bread

Teaching:

1.    Go feed some ducks.  Compare and contrast real ducks to the ducks in the book. 

Art

Preparation

Materials

paper
yellow crayon or marker
orange crayon or marker
black crayon or marker

Teaching:

1.        Have your child draw a large "D" on a piece of paper in yellow.

2.  Turn the paper a quarter turn so that the straight part of "D" is now on top of paper.

3.  Draw a circle on the point of the "D" on the right side (this will create the duck's head).

4.  Make one,or two (if you want your duck to have an open mouth) triangles to the circle.

5.  Add a black dot for an eye (my son made his orange) and some blue water under your duck.

You just turned a "D" into a duck!!!

Your Child is a Genius

You may wonder if your child, who may still be trying to recognize letters, is ready to create these mini books with entire words and sentences.  The answer is a resounding YES! When you and I read we aren't reading phonetically (sounding out each word) we have actually memorized patterns in words which is why we read so quickly.  By doing these mini books, and learning these "words of the day/ words of the week" you are increasing their reading vocabulary even as your practicing letter sounds. 
And don't be discouraged if your child isn't reading the words, etc. right away.  You are introducing concepts.  It takes an average of being introduced to something ten times before a child begins to grasp a concept.  So enjoy teaching your child, enjoy watching the little light bulbs go off.  Enjoy their enthusiasm, match their enthusiasm. We learn more when we are enjoying what we are doing.  If your child is cranky, irritated, or otherwise not engaged, stop.  Do something different.  Because while we are teaching math and reading we are teaching attitudes of learning.  If we make learning miserable now school will always be associated with bad feelings and your child will put up walls that will inhibit their learning.  Life is challenging enough, make each preschool day an enjoyable, happy time.  That is my rant.  Thanks for putting up with it til the end.

Pumpkins - Day 3

Phonics/Writing

Preparation:

 

Materials

Paper with "Pumpkin," "stem," Leaf" printed  on it
Lined paper for writing
Teaching:

1.  Sound out each word with child and write, sound by sound on the writing paper, using best handwriting (I'll be posting video of how to teach handwriting this wek on youtube under the preschoolmommy, I'll add links later)

Reading

Preparation:

Create a book (see how to make a book from one piece of paper on my youtube video How to Make Mini Books)

Materials:

Book
Crayons

Teaching:

1. Read each page with your child, have them illustrate the text on the page.

Math

Preparation:

Seeds from Day 1 pumpkin, washed, and dry
Spinner with numbers 1-4 (I took apart a spinner from a board game, cut a circle from a piece of paper, divided it into fourths and wrote numbers on it.  I taped it to the table so the paper didn't slide around.)

Materials

Seeds
Spinner

Teaching:

To Play:

1. Child spins spinner and takes that number of seeds.
2. You spin spinner and take that number of seeds.
3. Take turns spinning.  When a person has a group of five seeds, they put them in a pile and lay them aside.
4. We played until one of us made it to ten piles (my son won!). You can play until all seeds are gone, or five piles.  You can change the numbers on your spinner and make piles of 3, or 4. 

To watch us play and get a better idea of how the game works watch my youtube video, Pumpkin Seed Game.

(Sorry about the youtube links but my videos have been  having a hard time uploading to this site)

Book of the Day:  The Pumpkin Patch by Elizabeth King

1. Read the book to your child, talking about what you are learning as you read.

Science

Preparation:

Get out a recipe that uses pumpkin (or use my recipe for "allergy free cupcakes" - my son has allergies to wheat, egg, milk, peanut, tree nut, sesame, soy, fish, and shellfish)
Prepare ingredients

Materials

Recipe and ingredients
My recipe is:
Allergy Free Pumpkin Cupcakes
1 cup Sugar
1/2 cup Vegetable Oil
2 TBSP Coconut Oil
1/2 tsp Vanilla
1 cup Pumpkin
3 tsp Egg Replacer mixed with 4 TBSP Water (we use EnerG Egg Replacer)
1 cup Oat Flour (you can look for gluten free oat flour or Bob's Red Mill GLuten Free flour or Garbanzo Fava Bean flour)
1 1/2 tsp Xanthan Gum
1 1/1 tsp Baking Powder
1 tsp Baking Soda
pinch Salt

1 tsp Cinnamon

1/2 tsp Nutmeg

1/4 tsp Cloves

1.  Combine sugar and oils.  Blend in pumpkin, vanilla and egg replacer.  Set aside.

2.  Sift together flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, and spices.

3.  Pour dry ingredients into pumpkin mixture and blend.

Pour into muffin tin lined with cupcake liners and bake at 350 approximately 30 minutes, or until fork inserted in center comes clean ("Comes clean" with allergy free may mean you may have a small amount of fully cooked cupcake that sticks to your fork. Just make sure no glossy, uncooked batter is on your fork).

Teaching:

1.    Cook with your child.  You measure, they pour.  Let them stir. Count out what you are measuring.

2.  We made allergy free frosting and added some sprinkles, too.

 Art

Preparation
Materials

Orange ball from yesterday's art lesson
Black paint
Brown paint
Paintbrush
Empty toilet paper roll
Masking Tape or glue

Teaching:

1. Take a piece of masking tape and tape the toilet paper roll to the top of your papier mache ball.
2. Have child paint a jack-o-lantern face on pumpkin with black paint.
3. Have child paint stem brown.

Ta da!  A 3-dimensional art project perfect for decorating with =)