Welcome! If this is your first time here, I am sharing lessons I teach my 5-year-old each month. Each week I choose two books, have two discussions and we create two crafts that go along with one character trait. I use a variety of resources online to put together the lesson plans. Enjoy!
Volunteering
Read: Knitting Nell by Julie Roth
Discuss: It’s not nice that Nell’s friends at school make fun of her sweater. What would you do if you were Nell? Why do you think Nell was always making gifts for others? How do you think Nell felt when she won the award?
Make: I talked to my daughter about all the people who volunteer in her school and her dance class. How they offer to help without any expectations. Then we sit together and I show her all the different ideas in my “Gift Ideas” board on Pinterest and we pick a few to make together for our volunteers.
Read: A Castle on Viola Street by DyAnne DiSalvo
Discuss: The family in the story helps to restore broken down homes in the city. There are so many discussion points that could be made in this book. You could talk about what a city environment is like and why some homes are boarded up. Talk about the kind hearts of the volunteers who go in and fix up these homes. Bring in empathy and ask your child how it might have felt to be the family who didn’t have a home?
Make: How fun are these Paper Bag Houses? The perfect craft to follow up after reading this book!
Greed
Read: The Very Greedy Bee by Steve Smallman
Discuss: What does it mean to be Greedy? What did the bee do to be greedy?
Make: Help your child retell the story using this free and fantastic template. Retelling is a great literacy skill to practice, especially since preschools will begin reading themselves and comprehension plays a major role in reading sucess!
Read: The Rainbow Fish by Marcus Pfisher
You can also watch/listen to the story read by a member of the actor’s guild here on YouTube.
Discuss: Help your child to make connections between this story and The Greedy Bee. The Bee didn’t want to share his nectar and what was it that the Rainbow Fish did that was so greedy? Why did the Rainbow Fish change his behavior by the end of the story?
Make: Here’s a great coloring page to complete after reading the story. I cut little pieces of aluminum foil out for my daugther to glue onto the paper as some of the scales just like the fish in the story!
Peace
Read: The Peace Book by Todd Parr
Discuss: I really like teaching the meaning of the word “Peace” to kids. This story does a fabulous job of providing examples of peace. Ask your child, what are some examples of peace in our own lives? Here at home? At school?
Make: My younger daughter made this craft for MLK Jr. Day but we did it again for this lesson. Put a piece of painter’s tape on a paper plate in the shape of a peace sign. Then have your child paint the plate and remove the tape. Look at these super examples!
