[Display letter J card.]

What is the name of this letter?

[Point to the uppercase letter J on the letter card.]

Am I pointing to the uppercase or to the lowercase letter J?

Now let’s spend some time with our book.

[See Week 3, Day 3 of Language/Literacy for a description and examples of how to approach today’s book reading. Key aspects are summarized below:

• Display book cover and say book title. Engage children in describing what they remember about the book:
  • What is our book about?
  • Who were the main characters in our book?
  • What happened first? What happened next?
• Remind children that reading a book is a good way to learn new words. Point to and say words introduced on Day 1 that are listed on the Words We Understand chart. Invite children to talk about what they recall about each of the words. Remind children of the meaning of each novel word.
• Point to where to begin to read on the first text page of the book. Pause during reading to briefly define words identified for today’s session. Use the following approach:
  • Read the sentence with the novel word. Repeat the novel word.
  • Repeat the sentence in which the word is used.
  • Define the novel word and connect the definition to the book.
• After the book reading, engage children in a discussion of each novel word targeted for today with one or more of the following strategies (plus writing the word on the chart):
  • Ask children to describe a picture related to the word.
  • Define a word without naming it and ask children to identify the word.
  • Encourage children to think about a novel word in another context.
• Encourage children to connect the book information to their own experiences. Below are some examples:
  • “Our book today was about worms. Have you ever seen or touched a worm? What was it like?”
  • “Our book today talked about roots. Roots are part of a plant that grow into the dirt. Have you ever seen the root of a plant? What was it like?”
  • “Today we talked about the word squeeze. We squeeze something by pressing things very close together. What kinds of things have you squeezed? How about a tube of toothpaste? How about a package or bottle of ketchup? Show us how you squeeze something.”]

We are learning about adding and subtracting. What happens to a group when we add more items? (it gets larger) What happens to a group when we subtract items? (it gets smaller)

[Display prepared chart and point to its parts as you describe them.]

Today we will use a chart to help us find out how many children are in a group. We will count how many boys and girls are in a group. Then we will add to see how many children we have all together in our group.

Please come to the chart and put a mark under boy or girl when I call your name.

[Invite five boys and two girls to the chart. One at a time, invite children to put a tally mark under boy or girl. Invite children to have a seat.]

• How can we find out how many boys are in our boy group? (count the marks)
• How can we find out how many girls are in our girl group? (count the marks)

Let’s count the number of boys in our boy group, and then I will write the total number of boys on our chart.

[Lead children in counting the tally marks for boys by touching each mark as you count. Write below the tally marks the numeral that represents the number of tally marks in the “boys” section.]

Now let’s count the number of girls in our group.

[Lead children in counting the tally marks for girls by touching each mark as you count. Write below the tally marks the numeral that represents the number of tally marks in the “girls” section.]

We have five boys in our boy group and two girls in our girl group.

How can we find out how many boys and girls we have all together? (add together the number of boys and the number of girls)

We can add by counting on. Let’s start with the largest group. The boy group has five. Five is larger than two. Let’s count on as we begin with the boy group: 5, 6, 7.

[Point to each tally mark as you count on.]

How many children do we have all together? (seven)

[Invite the same five boys and two girls to the chart.]

Let’s subtract two boys from our group of seven children.

[Encourage two boys to have a seat.]

Two boys from our group sat down. Let’s erase two marks from our chart because we subtracted two boys from our group.

[Erase two tally marks from the chart.]

How can we find out how many children we have remaining in our group? (we can count the number of children, we can count the number of tally marks)

[Lead children in counting as you point to and count the number of tally marks remaining on the chart.]

We started with seven children in our group. We subtracted two boys. Now we have five children left in our group.

Today we added and subtracted to find out how many children were in a group.

[Arrange children in a circle.]

Let’s spend some time today talking about what it means to be responsible. Responsible is a big word. Let’s together say the word “responsible”: re-spon-si-ble.

What is your idea of what it means to be responsible?

We are responsible when we make good choices about how we take care of ourselves and how we treat others and the things around us.

There are many good choices we can make about taking care of ourselves. We can think about:

• putting away the things we play with
• doing healthy things like brushing our teeth and washing our hands
• helping make our bed at home
• cleaning up after ourselves
• doing things to calm down when we get upset about something
• following rules

There are many good choices we can make about how we treat others and the things around us. We can think about:

• helping others during cleanup in our classroom
• being friendly to others
• helping our family do things like clearing our dishes from the table after a meal
• feeding our pets
• recycling

Sometimes it is hard to do what we are expected to do. There may be something else we want to do. We may want to play outside when it is our turn to help set the table for a meal at home. We may want to keep playing instead of stopping to go get a tissue and wipe our nose.

Today we will learn more about being responsible.

[Display basket.]

In this basket are pieces of paper with a short story on each. Each of us will take a turn to choose one piece of paper from the basket.

I will read the story on your piece of paper. Then we will talk about what the child in the story could do to be responsible.

[Pass the basket around the circle and invite each child to select one piece of paper. If a child mistakenly selects more than one piece of paper, encourage the child to return the paper to the basket rather than pass the piece of paper to another child. Each child should have an opportunity to select a piece of paper from the basket.]

We will take turns in the order we are seated in the circle. This will give us a chance to practice waiting patiently for our turn. Let’s start with (child) and then move around the circle like this.

[Move your arm in a pronounced manner to show the circle direction you will follow.]

(Child), please look at the picture on your piece of paper and tell us what you think the story might be about.

Now please pass your piece of paper to me so I can read it aloud.

[Read scenario with voice inflections and facial expressions appropriate to the story to encourage child engagement. Keep the sheet of paper in a small pile near you.

Invite the child who selected the piece of paper to respond to the question in the scenario. Avoid an awkward waiting period if the child does not offer an idea.

Then ask other children why the suggested response is a good choice. Example: “Maria talked about how Elliot should feed his cat before he rides his bicycle with his friend. Why is this a good choice?” In discussing reasons with children, emphasize benefits of helping others, being friendly, staying healthy, calming ourselves down when we get upset, etc.]

Today we talked about different ways we can be responsible. What does it mean to be responsible? (to make good choices about how we take care of ourselves and how we treat others and the things around us)

This week we are learning about a mountain habitat. We know that a mountain can be cold and windy and have many rocks.

[Display picture of a mountain.]

There can be snow and ice near the peak of a mountain. Remember, a peak is at the top of a mountain.

We know that some plants and animals can live on a mountain.

How do some plants live on a mountain? (grow close to the ground, have long roots so they can grow in rocks)

Today we will learn about some animals that can live on a mountain.

Animals that live on a mountain must be able to climb and jump across high rocks. They also must be able to keep warm in the snow and ice that can cover the peak of a mountain.

[Display picture of a snow leopard.]

This is a picture of an animal that can live on a mountain. The animal is a snow leopard. The snow leopard is a large, wild cat that lives near the snowy peak of a mountain.

• What do you notice about the snow leopard’s paws? (wide)
• What do you notice about the snow leopard’s fur and tail? (thick fur, long and fluffy tail)

The snow leopard’s thick fur keeps it warm. The snow leopard’s wide paws help it walk in snow and ice.

Snow leopards have the longest tail of any kind of cat. Snow leopards use their long fluffy tails to help keep warm. They wrap their tails around themselves like scarves.

Snow leopards live in only some parts of the world. Most mountains do not have snow leopards.

Now we will learn about another animal that can live on a mountain.

[Display picture of a mountain sheep.]

This animal is called a mountain sheep. A mountain sheep is a type of sheep that lives in the mountains in some parts of the world.

There are many kinds of mountain sheep. Mountain sheep can be different sizes and colors. Their horns can be different sizes. Mountain sheep live on the rocky cliffs of a mountain. A cliff is the high side of a rocky mountain.

[Point to the rocky cliff in the picture of the mountain sheep.]

Mountain sheep eat grass and small plants they find on a mountain. Some mountain sheep use their horns for fighting other mountain sheep. They sometimes fight to decide which one is in charge. Mountain sheep are good at jumping and climbing on rocks.

Why do you think it is important for mountain sheep to be able to jump and climb on rocks of a mountain? (to get around on a mountain, to keep safe)

A mountain sheep must jump and climb on rocks all of the time. Let’s pretend we are mountain sheep, jumping from rock to rock.

There are pieces of paper on our floor that we can pretend are rocks on a mountain. We can pretend we are jumping from rock to rock to get to the peak of the mountain.

[Invite children to stand in two lines behind each set of “rocks.” Encourage children, one at a time at each set of rocks, to take turns pretending to jump from “rock” to “rock.”]

Today we learned about two animals that can live in a mountain habitat. How does the snow leopard’s tail help it live in the mountains? (keeps it warm like a scarf ) Why is it important for mountain sheep to be able to jump and climb? (to move around in a rocky place and to avoid predators)

[If time permits, teach children the adjacent rhyme about a snow leopard.]