Oral language
Children will understand basic information, including the meaning of several novel words, presented in a book read aloud.
New:
Be Prepared: Today’s reading focuses on children’s understanding of basic information presented in a book. The plan described below is for a single reading of the book. Select 3–5 novel words in the book to define for children. See the Language/Literacy section of the ELM Curriculum User Guide: 3–5 Years for additional information. Write the following at the top of the chart paper: Words We Understand. See Language/Literacy Week 2, Day 1 for guidance on the first-time reading of a book with children.
Open the session by reminding children that books help us learn new words. Point to the chart, read its title, and write and define the words you identified for children to learn (see Be Prepared).
Display the book cover and read the title and names of the author(s) and illustrator. Engage children with the book, using a strategy focused on the book’s front cover. Some examples include:
Read the book without inviting talk until you have finished reading. Point to and describe illustrations directly related to the text. During and/or after the book reading, explain characters, events, or words that may be challenging for children to understand. Ask questions or offer descriptions, such as the following, to help children focus on key parts of the story:
Ask questions, such as the following, to help children remember important aspects of the book:
Use children’s responses to provide a quick recap of the story. Examples:
Review new words introduced today. Point to and read each word on the chart. Help children remember how the word was used in today’s book.
Offer a book-related transition to children’s next activity. Example: Invite children to select a center activity based on their response to the following:
Extra support
Enrichment
Number knowledge
Children will practice one-to-one counting.
Review:
Offer the Week 8, Day 5 activity to review one-to-one counting in forming equal groups.
Support children working in pairs to roll a ball a specified number of times.
Display a large numeral card. Invite a volunteer child to name the numeral. Lead children in counting together the number of dots on the card as you point to each.
Explain that today we will work with a partner, you will roll the ball back and forth the number of times listed on a card. Demonstrate by inviting a volunteer child to sit facing, you approximately five feet away. Roll the ball back and forth with the volunteer child as you count each roll. Roll the ball as many times as specified on the card you display. Restate how many times the ball was rolled. Remind children that you and the volunteer child rolled the ball a number of times equal to the number of dots on the card.
Arrange children in pairs, with children in each pair sitting across from each other. Give each pair a ball. Choose and display a large numeral card. For the initial practice, invite a child to name the numeral displayed on the card. If appropriate, together count the number of dots on the displayed card. Invite pairs of children to roll the ball the number of times shown on the card. Encourage each pair to count together the number of times the ball is rolled.
Use the procedure described above with different large numeral cards as time and children’s interest permit.
Inquiry Skills
Children will strengthen their understanding of how scientists learn about dinosaurs.
Review:
We are learning a lot about dinosaurs. Could we have a dinosaur for a pet? (no, dinosaurs are no longer living!)
Dinosaurs died many, many years ago. Dinosaurs are extinct. Remember, extinct means a group of animals or plants is no longer living. Animals that are extinct are gone forever. Pictures of dinosaurs show what scientists think dinosaurs looked like. No one living today has ever seen a real dinosaur.
We know that scientists use fossils as clues about what dinosaurs looked like and how they lived. Remember, some fossils are the remains of an animal, like bones or teeth. Other types of fossils are the marks of a dinosaur’s footprint or feather. We know that the feet of an animal can leave marks in the soil. We call this a footprint.
Yesterday we made a pretend fossil of a dinosaur footprint. Our pretend fossils dried overnight. Let’s look at our pretend fossils!
[Distribute Day 4 cups to each child. Ask another adult to help you work with each child in tearing the cup away from the plaster of paris. Tear it over a trash can.
Encourage children to compare their pretend footprints. Remind children they made a pretend fossil of a dinosaur footprint. Ask children to recall the name of the long parts of the foot. (claws)]
Dinosaur fossils can be seen in some museums. Remember, a museum is a building where valuable things are stored and put out for people to look at. All museums have treasures like art. Only some museums have dinosaur bones and other fossils.
We are going to read a book that tells us how dinosaur bones, dug up by scientists, get to a museum. The book also will tell us what scientists do with the bones at the museum.
[Display book cover.]
The title of our book is Bones, Bones, Dinosaur Bones. The author and illustrator of our book is Byron Barton.
[Encourage children to describe what they see on the book cover.
On each page, use your own words to describe the illustration after reading the line of text. Each illustration has many parts to discuss.
Draw attention to book information that connects to this week’s dinosaur content and activities. Examples:
The scientists at the museum put the dinosaur bones together. Remember when all the bones are put together, they make a skeleton. A skeleton gives an animal its shape.
[Display picture of a skeleton of a dinosaur.]
The bones did not come with instructions for the scientists. The scientists had to figure out where each bone fit into the dinosaur’s skeleton.
Putting together a dinosaur skeleton is like a big puzzle for the scientists to solve. It takes scientists a long time to figure out how the pieces might go together.
Today we read a book about finding a dinosaur’s bones and putting the dinosaur’s bones together to make a skeleton. It is like putting together a big puzzle that has lots of pieces. We can go to some museums to see dinosaur bones and skeletons.
[Invite children to take home their pretend fossil.]
Extra support
Enrichment
Provide puzzles for children to put together. Remind children that putting dinosaur bones into a skeleton is like putting together a big puzzle with many pieces.
School-age children may wish to describe special things they may have seen in a museum. Both preschool-age and school-age children may enjoy describing their favorite dinosaur.
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Getting Along With Others
Social-Emotional
Skill and Goal
Relationship skills
Children will strengthen their understanding of how to solve typical classroom situations, including how to share an object.
Materials
Needed
*Printables provided
Key
Concepts
Review:
Offer the Week 6, Day 3 activity to review ways to assess the appropriateness of solutions for typical classroom problems.
Engage children in suggesting and assessing solutions to problems that involve sharing an object.
Explain that sometimes we want to use something that another child is using, or there is only one toy that several of us want to use. Remind children that sharing a toy is one solution. We can share a toy by taking turns playing with it or by playing with the toy with another child. Also remind children that a good solution is fair. Fair means everyone gets a chance to do something.
Place pictures face down in the middle of the circle. Invite different volunteer children to select a picture, one at a time. Use your own words to describe the situation (see below) associated with the picture. Engage children in discussion of the following for each situation: