Jan Brett Day Three - Gingerbread Baby

Reading

Preparation

Gingerbread Baby by Jan Brett. 

Go to Jan Brett website and size, print out and tape the following animals to craft sticks: dog, pig, goat, cat,  gingerbread baby,(These are printable as big masks, so I copy, size in a word document to smaller, then print) gingerbread house.  Draw a mom and dad and tape them to craft sticks

Materials
Teaching
1. Read book to child
2. Using puppets (characters on craft sticks) have child retell the story of the gingerbread a baby.

Writing
Preparation

On large dotted paper write capital "G" on first line, lower case "g" on second line. On subsequent lines write: ag, et, ig, ill, ot, um, ut

Materials

Paper

Pen or pencil

Teaching

1.Teach child proper formation of capital- and lower case "G."

2. Have child add "g" to each rime ("ag," "et," etc)

 to create new word.
3.Have child read each new word as they create it.

Phonics
Preparation
Write the following: cat, dog, goat, pig, fox, milk, cheese, baby, mother, father, Martha, cookbook, Matti, candy, gingerbread, Madeline, peppermint. Cut out each word
Divide a piece of paper into thirds.  At top of first column write "1," second column :2,: third column "3"
Materials
words
Columned paper

glue stick

Teaching

1. Clap out the syllables in each word with your child.

2. Have child glue the word in the column with number representing the syllables in word (cat, dog, etc go under column labeled one, and so on)

3. See if your child can clap out syllables on their own.

Math

Preparation

Get materials together

Materials

60 plastic bricks (Lego's, etc)

Die (one dice)

Teaching
1. Each person rolls the die and takes that many plastic blocks, linking them together.
2. When you have a stick of 10 blocks, start creating a new stick.
3.The winner is the person who has three sticks of ten, or 30 blocks.

Exploration
Preparation
Get ingredients to make a gingerbread cookie
Write steps to making cookie on pieces of paper with a picture (see example below)

Materials
Ingredients to make a gingerbread cookie
Teaching
1. With your child make a gingerbread man.  (We made an extra large gingerbread baby)
2. Make connections to the book as you measure, mix, pour and bake without peeking!


Art
Preparation
Make icing, gather together small candies, etc.
Materials
gingerbread cookie
icing
candies, etc
Teaching
1. Decorate your gingerbread baby with your child!

My Allergy free Gingerbread Cookie recipe
Sift together:
1/2 cup rice flour
1/2 cup single grain oatmeal (baby food oatmeal)
1/2 cup single grain rice cereal (baby food)
3/4 tsp xanthan gum
2 TBSP Potato starch
1tsp Ginger
1/2 tsp cinnamon
1/8 tsp nutmeg
1/8 tsp salt
In a separate bowl cream together:
6 TBSP shortening
6 TBSP brown sugar
4 TBSP Molasses
2 TBSP applesauce
1 TBSP Water
1 1/2 tsp Egg replacer

1.  Mix dry ingredients into wet.
2.  Line cookie pan with tin foil. Put dough on baking sheet.
3. Cover dough with wax paper and roll out.
4.   Carefully cut out cookies, pulling away excess dough.   DO NOT TRY TO LIFT COOKIES!!
5.  Bake 350 for 10-12 minutes.
6.  Cool and decorate!
1/2 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp baking soda

**This week we are using books by the same author/illustrator, Jan Brett, and will begin each day with reading the book**

Don't forget to do your Daily 4

1.Alphabet

2.  Numbers to 100

3. Child Reading

4. Read to your child at least 5 books (Gingerbread Baby counts as one!)

Jan Brett Day Two - The Hat

Reading
Preparation
Get the book The Hat by Jan Brett
Create a mini book - make 2 mini books, gluing the covers together to create a longer mini book.
On each page of the book write _______ has a hat.
Print out animals from the Jan Brett website,size to fit mini book, print, and cut out
Materials
Mini Book
animals
markers or crayons
pen

Teaching
1. Read the book The Hat to child.
2. Read mini book to child. Have them choose an animal, paste it to the page. Write animal in the blank.
3. Have child draw a hat on animal.
4. Have child read the book to you, to a sibling,to a stuffed animal, etc.
5.Keep with other mini books, in an easily accessible place for your child.

Phonics
Preparation
Make a small poster with two boxes on it.  Label the top box "Words" and the lower box "Jail"
Draw bars on the "jail"
on a sticky note write "at"
On separate sticky notes write all consonants, and the following "fl," "st," "pl," "th," "tr," "ch," "cr," "dr," "br," "sp"
Materials
Poster
sticky notes
Teaching
1. Put a consonant or onset ("st,"etc) in front of "at."
2. Have your child sound out the word.

3.If it makes an actual word, put it in the word box. If it doesn't make a word put it in "jail."


Writing
Preparation
Using large dotted line paper write a capital "H" on first line and a lower case "h" on second line. On other lines write the following rimes: ad, ag, am, at, en, id, ill, ip, op, ot, ub, ug, um, ut 
Materials
paper
pen or pencil
Teaching
1. Teach child how to properly form capital- and lower case H
2. Have child add an "H" to each rime and sound out new word they created

Math
Preparation
Remove face cards from a deck of cards
Materials
deck of cards
Teaching
1. Play War with child.
2.Shuffle and divide deck between the two of you.
3. Turn over top card at same time as child.
4.Whoever has highest card wins both cards.  If there is a tie go again, winner takes all four (or six, etc) cards.
5.Winner of game is person with most cards.


Art
Preparation
Cut out hat shape from construction paper
Materials
Hat cut from paper
markers, crayons, etc
glue, glitter
stickers, etc
Teaching
1. Have child decorate hat

**This week we are using books by the same author/illustrator, Jan Brett, and will begin each day with reading the book**

Don't forget to do your Daily 4

1.Alphabet

2.  Numbers to 100

3. Child Reading

4. Read to your child at least 5 books (The Mitten counts as one!)

Jan Brett - Day 1 The Mitten

**This week we are using books by the same author/illustrator, Jan Brett, and will begin each day with reading the book**

Don't forget to do your Daily 4

1.Alphabet

2.  Numbers to 100

3. Child Reading

4. Read to your child at least 5 books (The Mitten counts as one!)

Reading

Preparation

Get Book The Mitten by Jan Brett

Materials

The Mitten by Jan Brett

Teaching

1.  You are going to go on a "Picture Walk." A picture walk is when you look at the pictures in a book and make predictions about what is happening in the book, what may happen next, etc. Here is a video of how I took a picture walk with my son.

2.  Now read the book together.

Phonics

Preparation

Pictures of the mitten and the animals in the mitten (mole, rabbit, hedgehog, owl, badger, fox, bear, mouse) - these can be found at Jan Brett's website.
Make two copies of mitten, tape together around the edges.
Cut out animals

Materials

* Mitten

* Animals

Teaching

1.  You are going to give rhymes for the different animals.  When you give the rhyme your child needs to find the animals that goes with that rhyme.

2.  Say, "Look in the hole you might find a ______ (mole). Child finds mole in group of animal and puts it in the mitten.

3.  Make it a habit to look for the ______ (rabbit).  Child finds rabbit in group of animals and puts it in the mitten.
4.  Say, "Do you like tickles?  Find the animal with _____ (prickles - hedgehog). Child finds hedgehog in group of animals and puts it in the mitten.
5. Say, "A bird is a fowl, can you find the ____(owl). Child finds the owl and puts it in the mitten.
6.  Say, "It is dark and it is light, find the animal that's black and _____ (white - badger). Child finds badger and puts it in the mitten.
7.  Say, "Loon in a big brown box, you may find a little ___ (fox). Child finds fox and puts it in the mitten.

8. Say, "Use a brush to brush your hair, then you can find the ____ (bear)." Child finds bear and puts it in the mitten.
9. Say, "Look outside or in the house, then you can find the ____ (mouse)." Child finds mouse and puts it in the mitten.

Writing

Preparation

 Using dotted line paper (for a copy of dotted line paper I've made email me @ amyiswrite@gmail.com) write a capital "M" on the top line, a lower case 'm' on second line, then creating a space foe the letter "m" write the following on the remainder of page: -ad, -an, -ap, -at, -en, -et, -ill, -ink, -it, -ock, -op, -uck

Materials

"M" page created above

Marker

Teaching

1. Teach your child how to form upper and lower case letter "M." For how I teach this watch video for upper case "M" and lower case "m."

2. Read "-ad." Have your child add the "m" and sound out the word "mad."

3.  Repeat for each group of letters creating the words man, map, etc..

Math

Preparation

Use the same mitten and animals you used for phonics.  On four small pieces of paper write the numbers 5, 12, 23, 36

Materials

Mitten

Animals

Small pieces of paper

Teaching

1.  Put the small pieces of paper in the mitten.

2.  Have your child pull out one of the small pieces of paper.

3.  Using the animals count on to the number.  For example, if your number is "5" say "Five," then add the bear and say "Six," add the rabbit and say "seven." Continue with the rest of the animals.

**Counting on to various numbers is an educational standard for kindergarten, so you may need to help your child at first.**

Exploration

Preparation

Get yarn

Materials

Yarn

Teaching

1.  You will teach your child to finger crochet a bracelet.  If you aren't sure how to finger crochet watch my video here (my blog is cursed that videos don't play here).

Art

Preparation

Cut 2 mitten shapes out of a piece of construction paper. Using a hole punch, punch holes around the mitten.

Tape the end of a piece of yarn. Tie the untaped piece of yarn to the mitten.

Materials

Mitten cut out

Yarn

Markers, glue, glitter, etc

Yarn

Teaching

1.  Have your child "sew" the two mittens together through the cut out holes using the taped yarn. 

2.  When child is done, tie the yarn off and allow child to decorate the mitten.. 

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 =)

Pumpkins - Day 2

Phonics/Writing

Preparation:

Using letters from a Scrabble game, write the words "pumpkin," "stem," and "orange" on a piece of paper.  Trace around the letters.  Then write the words "pumpkin," "stem," and "orange" in the boxes.  I added lines next to the words for writing practice.

Materials

Paper

Scrabble letters

Pencil

Teaching:

Letter Learner (Learning letters and letter sounds):

1.       Every preschool session play one of the letter learning games from this site. 
2.       As child places letters on the paper sound out the phoneme (sound) of that letter. 

 Emergent Reader (Knows letters and letter sounds):

1.       Have child find and sound out each letter as they place it on the paper.

2.       Have child guess word, and if they are unable to figure out word, sound it out together slowly until they can figure out what the word says.

The child's paper should look like this:

3. Have the child, using correct penmanship, write the words.

Reading

Preparation:

Make a poster with poem “Pumpkin”

"Pumpkin, Pumpkin,

Round and fat

Turn into a jack-o-lantern

Just like that.

Boo!

Materials:

Poem

Orange crayon

Yellow crayon

Teaching:

Letter Learner:

1.        Read the poem together 2-3 times.  At the end of the poem make your best "jack-o-lantern face."

2.       Have your child find and color all the ‘P’s” orange.

3.       Say the word pumpkin together.  Listen to the two /p/ sounds.

4.       Read it through again.  Point to each word as you say it.

5.       Help child point to words with you. (This helps them recognize sounds and words).

Emergent Reader:

1.       Read poem together 2-3 times.

2.       Have child color the word “pumpkin” orange. 

3.        Have child point to and say any other words they know.  They can color those words, too.

5.       Say poem again pointing to words. 

6.       Hand child a pointer (wand, pen or pencil with a star attached to it, etc.) and as you say the poem together they point to each word as they say it.  (This is important in helping them connect written word with what they are saying).

Math

Preparation:

Seeds from Yesterday's pumpkin, washed, and dry

Materials

Seeds

Teaching:

1.        Count the pumpkin seeds together. Make piles of ten seeds as you count.  When child gets tired of counting, stop.  Don't torture them with continuing to count after they've lost interest.  Be positive and say, "Wow! We counted 46 seeds!  That's a lot of counting, and there are still more! There are a lot of seeds in pumpkins!"

Book of the Day:  Pumpkins by Gail Gibbons

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

Science

Preparation:

Buy a pumpkin, and several other fruits

Materials

Fruits

Teaching:

1.    Have your child compare and contrast the pumpkin to the other fruits.  Talk about size, shape, color, texture, etc.

Art

Preparation

Cut orange construction paper into 2 inch strips
Blow up a balloon into a small ball, tie off.
Mix together on medium size plate approximately 1/4 cup glue and 1/4 cup water (just eyeball it, you don't need to be exact.)

Materials

paper
balloon
glue mixture

yarn

Teaching:

1.        Have your child dip the strips of paper into the glue/water mixture.  We put several strips in the mixture and let them soak until thoroughly wet. 
2.  Apply the strips, one at a time, to the balloon, layering pieces over one another. Like this:

3.  When the balloon is covered with the paper, tie a piece of yarn to the top, take the balloon outside, tie it so the balloon is hanging and let dry overnight.  You may want to put something under the balloon because it can drip. If you want to dry the pumpkin on your counter overnight realize it may flatten a little.

Bats - Day 2

Writing/Phonics
Preparation
None
Materials

• Jell-o (gelatin)
• Plate

Teaching

1. Have your child write the letters for "Bat" in the Jell-O one at a time, making (saying) the sound for as long as they are writing the letter

Reading
Preparation
Make a book (See Video from Spiders Day 2)
Write on Title Page: Black Bat
Write on first double page (pages 1-2): Black Bat
Write on second double page (pages 3-4) Black Bat bit.
Write on third double Page (Pages 5-6) Black bat bit bugs.

Materials

• Black Bat book
• Crayons

Teaching

1. Read "Black Bat" to your child.
2. Say, "There are no illustrations on the pages.  Can you draw the pictures for this book?"

 
3. Read each page and have them draw a picture to go with the words.
4. Have your child read you the book.
5. Have your child read the book to dad, mom, the family pet, aunt, etc.

Math

Preparation

Draw or print 10 green bugs and 10 black bugs, cut them out into individual bugs
Hide the bugs around the room


Materials

• Bugs
• Crayons
• Paper, divided into four sections
• Glue

Teaching

1. Tell your child he is a little brown bat and is going out at night to get some food.
2. He needs to catch 5 bugs and bring them back to you to "eat".
3. Have child find five bugs and bring them to you. (My son put a blanket around his shoulders so he would have "wings.")

4. Identify the bugs your child has brought to you ("You have one green bug and four black bugs.  Good.  You found five bugs.")

5. Have child glue bugs to the paper. Write the equation.
6. Repeat three more times.

Modification

• You can use any number you want for the bug catch. I find five or less works well. It's not an overwhelming number.  The point is to help your child have a GREAT number sense when they start kindergarten.  This gives numbers meaning rather than counting they see the number comprised of a group of things.
• You can have your child write the equations.

Book
Preparation
On the top of a piece of paper write "BATS EAT"

Materials

• Paper
• Crayons
• Post it notes

Teaching

1. Read a bat book to your child (Gail Gibbons Bats is a great book for this).

2. Every time the book talks about food mark it with a post it note.
3. After reading the book write the things a bat eats on the paper. 
4. Have your child illustrate it.

Modifications
Your child can write the words instead of you.

Art
Preparation
Print or copy a black line picture of a bat

Materials

• Black paper
• Black line picture of bat
• Crayons
• Scissors
• Glue
• Star Glitter or glitter

Teaching

1. Have your child color the bat.
2. Have your cut out the bat.
3. Have your child glue the bat to the black paper.

4. Have your child glue some star glitter on the black paper.

Bats - Day 1

Writing/ Phonics

Preparation:

No Prep for this one

Materials

• Bubble Gum
• Paper
• Pen

Teaching

1. You and your child get to chew gum until it's soft and pliable.
2. Stretch the gum out of your mouth so it makes a long strand. Say the word "Bat" very slowly as you stretch the gum out of your mouth.
3. Have your child stretch out the gum (and the word) several times.
4. Ask your child, "What is the first sound?  Write the letter that makes that sound. What is the second sound. What is the letter that makes that sound?  Write it down.  What is the third sound? What letter makes that sound?  Write it down."

Modifications:

If your child doesn't know the letters tell them the letter and write it for them.

Reading

Preparation:

Create a small poster using this poem:
Little Brown Bat flies at night.
Eating bugs during his flight
Bat flies home it gets light
Sleeping upside down with his eyes shut tight.
You can embellish the poster with pictures, etc.

Materials

• Poster
• Marker or crayon in 2-3 colors
• Pointer (this could be your finger or a wand, etc)

Teaching

1. Read the poem to your child a few times, pointing to each word as you say it.
2. Have your child read it with you.
3. Point to the word bat and underline it, say, "You know this word.  It's the word bat.  How many times do we see the word 'bat?'  Help me find the word 'Bat.'"
4. Let the child point out the word "bat."
5. Point out rhyming words at the end of each line.  Circle the rhyming words. Have your child say the rhyming words with you.
6. Have your child color the word brown a light brown color the word still shows.
7. Say, "Look at all the words you know! You know Bat (point to the word bat).  You know brown (point to the word brown) and you know our rhyming word family (point to rhyming words and say them).
8. Say the poem again, letting child point to the words "brown," "bat," and rhyming words.  Put the poem somewhere low and encourage your child to read the poem whenever they want,pointing to the words as thy go.  Have your child read the poem to the family pet, dad, mom, grandma, grandpa, a stuffed animal, etc.

Math

Preparation:
Create a flip book with 5 sections. (see Spiders Day 2 for instructions)
Materials
Flip book
15 Bat stickers, or 15 small bat pictures and a glue stick (I just used clip art and sized it small)

Teaching

1. Have your child label the flaps 1-5 with your help forming the numbers
2. Have them stick or glue the corresponding number of bats under the flap to the number on the flap.  (One bat under flap marked 1, etc)
3. Tell them to find the 3 bats, the 2 bats, etc.

4. Like every poem, or book, or flip book you make, put this in a special bucket and tell your child that he wrote these cool books and he can read them any time he wants to.

Book
Preparation:
Plan a visit to your bookstore or Library (I prefer library) and get three books on bats for the week.
You want to find books with no more than a few sentences on each page, and large illustrations or photographs.
I like:
Bats by Gail Gibbons
Materials
Book
Paper
Pen
Teaching
1. Fold Paper into three sections labeling first section with a "K", second with a "W", third with an "L".
2.  Ask your child, "What do you know about bats?"
3.  Write what they know under "K" section (K=Know)
4.  Ask your child what they want to know about bats (W=Want to know)
5.  Write questions in column under "W". 
6.  Read Book, talking as you read about the things you are learning
7.  Write under "L" the things learned (L=Learned).
** Don't expect a long list in any of the categories, 2-3 things is good!
Art
Preparation:
Cut a black or brown piece of paper into a medium circle (bat head), large oval  (bat body), two small triangles (ears) and two rectangles (bat wings)
Materials
Black or brown paper, cut
Glue

Teaching

1. Accordion fold rectangles for wings.

2. Glue pieces together to form bat.