[Display book.]

What is this?

A book is something we read. It has pages and a cover. Books have a front cover and a back cover.

[Display the front cover and back cover as you describe each.]

The cover of a book tells us something about what is inside the book. Let’s look at the front cover of this book.

[Display the front cover of the book.]

What do we see on the front cover of this book? (pictures, words, letters, etc.)

The front cover of a book tells us the title of the book. The title of a book is the name of the book. This book is called _______.

[Point to each word in the title as you read it.]

The front cover of a book also tells us the name of the author of a book. The author of this book is _______.

[Point to the author’s name as you read it.]

There is another name on the front cover of a book. This is the illustrator of the book. The illustrator of this book is _______.

[Point to the illustrator’s name as you read it.]

We begin reading a book from the front. First we read the front cover of the book. Then we begin to read the pages inside the book.

[Display the first page of the book.]

We start reading with the first word on the first page.

[Point to the first word on the first page.]

A book has many words in it. Words tell us important information about something. The words in this book tell us about (topic of book).

Words can be put together in a line like this.

[Point to the first line of words.]

We begin reading the words on this side of the page and move across to the other side of the page.

[Point to the words on the first line in a left-to-right motion.]

When we have finished reading the words in the first line we drop down to the second line and read across the page again.

[Point to the words on the second line in a left-to-right motion.]

I am going to read the first page of our book so we can learn how words work.

[Read the first page of the book as you point to each word with your finger.]

• What did we learn when we read the first page of the book?
• Do the words in this book look different from the picture(s)?

[Point to both the words and the picture(s) on the first page.]

Words tell us something that we would not be able to learn by looking at the pictures only.

Today we learned many things about books.

[Display book used in today’s activity.]

This is the front cover of the book. What do we find on the front cover of a book? (book title, author, illustrator)

[Point to first line of words on the book’s first page.]

These are called words. Words tell us important information about something. The words are put together in a line. Show us by moving your hand, which way do we read the lines of words?

[Use a left-to-right motion as you point to lines of words on the page.]

Are words and pictures the same thing? (no) Words tell us something we would not be able to learn by looking at a picture only.

We are learning that when we count, we say numbers to find out how many. On Day 2 we counted pictures of monkeys to find out how many monkeys were on a page of our book.

Sometimes we can learn how many there are without counting! We can look at things and just know how many there are.

Let’s find out if we can tell how many cups there are without counting.

[Hold up one cup for about two seconds, then quickly hide it.]

How many cups did I have?

[Wait for responses. Show one cup again to confirm.]

Let’s do this several more times.

[Repeat this process several times with different numbers of cups, from 2 to 4. Do not comment on accuracy of children’s numbers. After children respond, show and say the number of cups.]

We knew how many cups there were without counting them.

Sometimes we need to count to find out how many.

[Place 2–5 crayons in front of you, depending on children’s counting skills.]

Please help me count how many crayons are in front of me. I will point to each crayon, and you can count with me.

[Point to each crayon as you say the number.]

There are ____ crayons in this group.

Today we looked quickly at groups of cups and decided how many cups we had without counting. We also counted how many crayons were in a group.

We know that sometimes we like to play alone. Sometimes our friends also want to play by themselves. But sometimes we want to play with others. And sometimes our friends also want to play with others.

There are many ways we can let someone know we would like to play together. I have some pictures that can help us think about different ways to ask someone to play. Let’s look at the pictures together.

[Display picture of child sharing a toy.] 

This picture shows a boy sharing a toy. When we share something we use it or
enjoy it with others.

Why do you think sharing a toy might be a good way to ask someone to play? (it shows we play nicely, our friend may like the toy)

Our puppets can show us how to use a toy to ask someone to play with us.

[Demonstrate by using two puppets to represent two children. Make the first puppet hand the second puppet a toy and say, “Would you like to share this toy with me? We can play with it together.”

Display picture of boy taking hand of friend.]

This picture shows a boy taking the
hand of his friend.

Why do you think this might be a good way to ask someone to play? (it shows that you are nice, you can lead someone to where you are playing)

[Demonstrate again with two puppets. Make the first puppet gently take the second puppet by the hand and say, “I am playing with the blocks. Would you like to come over and play with me?”

Display picture of boy talking to a friend.]

This picture shows a boy talking to his friend and telling him what he would like to do.

Why do you think this might be a good way to ask someone to play? (because we are telling someone what we want to do)

[Demonstrate again with two puppets. Make the first puppet say to the second puppet, “Let’s play together! Let’s play!”]

There are many ways to let someone know we would like to play. We can share a toy with a friend, take our friend gently by the hand, or just ask someone to play. We can use these pictures to help us remember what to do when we want to ask someone to play!

We are learning what it means to be creative. We know that art, music, and dance are ways to be creative. Have you been creative today? What did you create?

Today we are going to learn one more way we can be creative.

Have you ever pretended to be someone else?

Maybe you changed your voice or put on clothes or a costume that helped you pretend to be someone else.

Have you ever done this?

Sometimes we pretend to be someone else in the housekeeping center. It can be fun to pretend we are a mom or a dad or someone else. Remember, when we pretend, we make believe we are a different person or we make believe a toy we are playing with is something different. We might pretend to be a doctor. But we are not really a doctor.

Pretending is a fun way to do drama. Drama is when one person or a group of people tell a story through their words and actions. We can do drama ourselves or we can watch someone else use drama to tell a story through their words and actions.

[Display two pictures of drama, one at a time.]

• When people do a puppet show they change their voices and pretend to make the puppets talk. A puppet is a kind of doll that we make move. Have you ever seen a puppet show?
• When people act in a play they may pretend to be someone or something else. A play is a story that a person or a group of people act out. In this picture people are pretending to be puppets in the story of Pinocchio. Have you ever seen a play?

  

  

I am going to use two puppets to show how we can pretend to be someone else to tell a story. The puppets will be Alishia and Samuel. We talked about Alishia and Samuel on Day 1. They were both being creative when they drew their idea of a tree. Listen carefully as Alishia and Samuel talk about their trees.

[Use two puppets (one on each hand) to provide a brief dialogue you make up between Alishia and Samuel about their ideas for drawing a tree. Describe how each character is being creative with his/her idea for a tree. Example: “I am making a tree that is tall with small green leaves. My tree looks different than your tree, Samuel. We are each being creative and drawing our idea of a tree!” Change your voice to represent Alishia and Samuel. Move the puppet who is speaking.

After the puppets talk, engage children in a brief conversation about how you used the puppets to tell the story about Alishia and Samuel’s trees. Emphasize how you changed your voice and moved the puppets while they were talking. This is drama.]

We are being creative through drama when we pretend to be someone else in telling a story through our words and actions. We used puppets in our classroom to show what drama can be like. We can be creative in a lot of different ways!