[Display letter R card.]

What is the name of this letter?

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

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

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.”]

[If time permits, lead children in singing the “Ten Little Frogs” song introduced on Day 1 as they hold up one of their fingers for each frog.]

Today we will read a book called The Very Hungry Caterpillar.

[Display front cover.]

What does the picture on the front cover of our book tell us the book might be about?

The author of our book is Eric Carle. Eric Carle is also the illustrator. The little caterpillar in the book was very hungry and ate many things! We will count some of the things eaten by the caterpillar.

• [As you read the book, count the items the caterpillar ate.
• Point out that each day the caterpillar ate one more item. As you turn each flap, count and point to the number of items and compare them to the next day.

Example: “On Tuesday the hungry caterpillar ate through two pears. Let’s count them. (turn the flap) On Wednesday the hungry caterpillar ate through three plums. Let’s count them.”]

We learned that the hungry caterpillar ate one more item than he did on the day before. On the last day the hungry caterpillar ate through 10 things!

[If time permits:]

Let’s play a game to see if we can correctly identify our numbers. There will be a trick to our game! I will ask you to tell us the name of the child holding the number after another number.

• [Invite 10 children to hold and arrange the large numeral cards in order from 1–10.
• Ask children who remain sitting to say who has the number after the number you specify. Example: “Who has the number that comes after three?”
• After children identify the child holding the numeral after three, ask the child holding that numeral to sit down.
• Continue until all children are sitting. Repeat with a different set of 10 children if time permits.]

Today we read The Very Hungry Caterpillar by Eric Carle. We counted all of the things the caterpillar ate on each day. Each day he ate through one more thing. We also played a game and said the name of the person who was holding the number after another number.

We are learning about emotions. What is an emotion? (the way we feel) Today we will learn about an emotion that may make us feel like we have butterflies in our stomach.

What do you think it means when people say they have butterflies in their stomach?

People do not actually have butterflies moving around in their stomach. But they may have a tickling feeling in their stomach. You might feel like you have butterflies in your stomach when you feel nervous. We may feel nervous when we are worried about something.

We might feel nervous when we go to the dentist’s office or when we play on a sports team for the first time. I felt nervous when _____. It is okay to feel nervous about something. All people feel nervous sometimes.

• Do you remember a time when you felt nervous? What was happening?
• How did your body feel when you felt nervous? (heart beating fast, muscles tight, tickling feeling in stomach, etc.)

There are things we can do to help our body calm down and feel more relaxed when we feel nervous.

We are learning how to concentrate on our breathing to help our mind and body feel relaxed. Taking deep breaths can help us relax when we feel nervous about something.

I am going to breathe in and out very slowly. I will to count to three as I breathe in, and count to three as I breathe out.

[Sit very still and take three deep breaths, using your fingers to count to three with each breath in and out.]

Taking deep breaths can help our body feel relaxed and less nervous. Let’s try it together by closing our eyes and concentrating on our breathing.

[Encourage children to sit quietly and concentrate on their breathing.]

When we take deep breaths, we can think about the air going in and out of our body. Let’s take three deep breaths together. I am going to count to three as we breathe in, and again as we breathe out.

[Encourage children to take three deep breaths together while concentrating on the air going in and out of their bodies. Quietly count each deep breath.]

Our muscles may also be tight when we feel nervous.

Remember how it felt several weeks ago when we squeezed our squeeze balls?

Our muscles in our hands were not relaxed when we were squeezing our squeeze balls. Let’s make a fist with our hand and pretend we are squeezing a squeeze ball.

[Encourage children to make a fist to illustrate tight muscles.]

This is how our muscles feel when they are not relaxed. Our muscles might feel this way when we are nervous about something. Let’s take a deep breath and let our hand relax. Now our muscles are relaxed.

When we are nervous, we can concentrate on our breathing to help our muscles relax.

Everyone feels nervous sometimes. We can feel nervous when we are worried about something. It’s okay to feel nervous. How might our body feel when we feel nervous? (muscles tight, butterflies or a tickling feeling in our stomach, etc.) Concentrating on our breathing and taking deep breaths can help us to feel less nervous.

[Display and point to four frog life cycle pictures.]

What animal’s life cycle is shown in these pictures?

We know that a life cycle has different stages. Each stage is different from other stages. We learned yesterday that a frog goes through four different stages.

Let’s act out each stage in the life cycle of a frog.

[Encourage children to spread out in the room so each has personal space.]

• Let’s pretend to be a tadpole in an egg by rolling up in a ball. This is the first stage in the life cycle of a frog.
• Now let’s pretend we are a tadpole swimming in the water. This is the second stage in the life cycle of a frog.
• The froglet is the third stage in the life cycle of a frog. Let’s pretend to be a froglet with a small tail.
  [Encourage children to place their hand behind their body to represent a tail.]
• Now let’s pretend to be an adult frog hopping!

Now let’s look at our pictures of a frog’s life cycle and talk about each stage.

Each of us will get a picture of a stage in the life cycle of a frog. Please hold up your picture when I describe the stage shown in your picture.

[Pass out one picture in random order to each child. Remind children to hold up their picture when you describe the stage shown in their picture. Encourage children to hold their card so other children can see it.]

• This is the first stage in the life cycle of a frog. (eggs) What do we see in our picture of this stage? (eggs) How did we pretend we were a tadpole in an egg? (rolled up in a ball)
• This small animal hatches from the egg and has a rounded body and tail. It does not look like its parents. (tadpole) What did we do to pretend we were a tadpole? (swam)
• This is a young frog that still lives in the water and has a tail. (froglet) How did we pretend we were a froglet with a small tail? (put hand behind body as a make-believe tail)
• This is the last stage of a frog’s life cycle. (adult) What is one way frogs move from one place to another place? (hop)

It takes a few months for tadpoles to change into adult frogs. Tadpoles take longer than baby chickens to become adults.

A tadpole looks very different from an adult frog. We know that frogs change from one thing to something completely different as they grow. We learned a big word that means something changes into something very different. The big word is metamorphosis. Let’s say together our big word about a frog’s life cycle: met-a-mor-pho-sis.

[Display chart from Days 1 and 2.]

We have learned many new things about frogs! We recorded on our chart some of the things we know and learned about frogs. First we made a list of what we know about frogs.

[Review the “What we know about frogs” list briefly, pointing to each entry on the chart as you talk about it.]

Then we made a list of what we learned about the life cycle of a frog.

[Review the “What we have learned about frogs” list briefly, pointing to each entry on the chart as you talk about it.

Consider inviting children to hop like a frog to their next activity.]