We are going to practice finding a letter we know by looking for it in a sentence. When we find the letter, we will also say the sound the letter makes.

[Write the following sentence on a chart or whiteboard. Read each word as you write the sentence:

Pioneer children liked to jump rope.]

We want to find the lowercase letter j in our sentence.

[Display letter J card. Point to the lowercase j on the card.

Encourage a volunteer child to look for and point to the lowercase letter j in the sentence as you display the letter J card.]

What sound does the letter J make?

Yes! Letter J says /j/. Let’s together say the sound of the letter J: /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.”]

[Invite children to point to numerals in the classroom and say the names of the numerals.]

Today we are going to play a game called I Have, Who Has? Each of us will get one number card. I also have number cards. We know that a number tells us how many.

[Give each child one numeral card.]

Ask your neighbor for help if you do not know the name of your number.

I will hold up one number card at a time and tell you what it is. Then I will ask the person who has the same number card to pop up and hold up his or her number card. Let’s try it.

• [Mix up your set of numeral cards and lay them in a stack in front of you face down.
• Display for children the numeral card at the top of your stack and say, “I have __; who else has __?” Example: “I have 11; who else has 11?”
• Continue until each child has had a turn.
• Collect numeral cards, shuffle them, and pass them out to play again, if time permits.]

Today we played I Have, Who Has? We used numbers 1–20 for our game. Let’s march around the room as we count to 20! How many marching steps will we need to take? (20)

We are learning what it means to stay safe at home or somewhere else. Remember, safe means we do not get hurt or sick or get into danger.

• What is one thing we can do to stay safe at home?
• What is one thing we can do to stay safe in our community?

Today we are going to make a class book about how we stay safe.

[Display the cover you created for the classroom book. Point to each word as you say it. Describe other aspects of the cover.]

Here is the cover of our book. It says, How We Stay Safe. The book cover also says, Illustrated by children in (name of your classroom).

Each of us will be an illustrator of our book. Remember, the illustrator of a book creates the pictures. Each of us will draw a picture for one page of our book. We can draw a picture of a way we stay safe at home or somewhere else.

One of the adults in our classroom will ask us about our picture and write what we say at the bottom of our page.

[Give each child a page for the class book as well as writing and drawing tools. Encourage children to draw a picture of a way they stay safe at home or somewhere else. Observe and ask questions about children’s pictures. Write on each page a brief description of what the illustrator (child) says about the picture. Add the child’s name to each page.]

Today we made a class book about how we stay safe at home or somewhere else. We each illustrated a page of our class book. Where should we put our book in our classroom so we can look at it later?

We are learning how shapes can be used to create art. Yesterday we made shape art. What color pencil did you use to create your shape art?

Today we are going to learn more about colors. Color is a characteristic of something or someone that we can see. We can touch or smell some characteristics of things. The only way we can tell the color of something is to look at it.

The same type of thing can be different colors. In our classroom we have (color) circles, (different color) circles, and (different color) circles. All are circles. Only the colors are different.

What colors are in the clothes you are wearing today?

• Who has a favorite color? What is the color?
  [Display picture of painting.]
• Colors are used a lot in art. What colors do we see in this picture of a painting?

Sometimes artists mix colors to make a different color. We have a book today that tells how colors can be mixed to create a new color.

[Display book cover.]

Our book is called Mouse Paint. It was written and illustrated by Ellen Stoll Walsh.

What colors do we see on the cover of our book?

[Repeat and point to each color identified by children.

As you read the book, point to colors mentioned in the book text, especially colors that become a third color when mixed.

At the end of the book reading, discuss with children how two colors became a third color when mixed together.]

We have some paint colors we can mix together to make a different color. Our colors are the same colors used by the mice in our book.

[Display each of the three paint colors. Invite children to identify each.]

Let’s first mix the yellow and blue paints. The mice mixed these colors in our book. What color will we get when we mix yellow and blue? (green)

[Place approximately equal amounts of the yellow and blue paints on the easel paper. Mix with your finger or a paintbrush. Describe your process, emphasizing the color green.]

Now let’s mix the blue and red paints. The mice also mixed these colors in our book. What color will we get when we mix blue and red? (purple)

[Place approximately equal amounts of the blue and red paints on the easel paper. Mix with your finger or a paintbrush. Describe your process, emphasizing the color purple.]

Display the picture of a painting.

• What colors do you think the artist mixed together when creating this painting? (red and yellow = orange; blue and red = purple ; yellow and blue = green)
• White is a color. The mice used some white in their painting. The artist used some white in this painting. Where do we see white in this painting? (house, clouds)

Color is a characteristic of something or someone that we can see. Can we feel or smell a color? (no) What part of our body do we use to pay attention to color? (our eyes) Colors of paint can be mixed together to create a different color. We read a book about three mice mixing colors when they were painting. What color were the mice when our book ended? (white)