Week 17: Happy Holidays!

Hello Penguins,
It's beginning to look alot like (insert whatever particular tradition you celebrate in the winter)!
We'll be reading Christmas in Many Cultures by Martha Rustad, and watching a holiday video. 

There are no scheduled classes for the following week.  Have a wonderful break!

week 16: Sweet, Sweet Music

Hello Penguins,

There's music in the air!
ESL classes will enjoy the book by Lloyd Moss, entitled Zin! Zin! Zin! A Violin! Then we'll watch a children's orchestra video.

Bilingual classes will listen to El Mejor Mariachi del Mundo by J.D. Smith, and then watch a video of a children's mariachi band. 

week 15: Food & Nutrition

Hello Penguins!
We're back from Thanksgiving and still thinking about food!  We'll read Sip, Slurp, Soup, Soup by Diane Gonzales Bertrand, and learn a vegetable picking song. 

Week 11 / 12 : Colors!

Hello Penguins,
We'll read A Color of His Own by Leo Lionni to wrap up week 11 and start off week 12!

It's a wonderful story for talking about colors and blending into your surroundings!

Week 11: Dark Dark Times

Hello Penguins,

We'll begin the new lesson this Wednesday and keep it through next Tuesday.  I'll be reading Ruth Brown's A Dark Dark Tale.  It's a little spooky and a whole lot of fun!  We'll make some time for independent reading as well.  See you there!

Week 10: Keep falling for Fall

Hello Penguins!
We'll stick with The Busy Little Squirrel by Nancy Tafuri for Monday and Tuesday, then we'll switch to Time to Sleep by Denise Fleming.  It's my attempt to make up the lesson to the classes I missed last week, and also to try a new system where I will rotate through different lessons throughout the week. 

We'll work on a little syllable segmentation after the story and hopefully have time for independent reading.
See you then!

Week 9: Gettin' Squirrely

Hello Penguins,
It's time for The Busy Little Squirrel to get busy!  We'll start off with Nancy Tafuri's book and then play a counting game with fall leaves and acorns.  See you there!

Week 8: Pets

Hello Penguins!
We'll read a couple of books about pets and explore the differences between fictional and informational texts.  I've chosen the following titles:

 

 
We'll sing "Yo Tenia Diez Perritos" (the gentler Alma Flor Ada version), and the ESL students will learn a poem about pets. I'll put the songs and poems in the sidebar folder.  See you then!

Week 7: All in the Family

I love The Family Book by Todd Parr!  It's fun, fun, fun and open-minded, too.  Kids love these simple pictures and funny descriptions.  Can't wait to share it with our little penguins.

We'll also do an activity where the children will get a chance to name and share the people in their family.  And yes, a little Jose Orozco poem.  It's just not a pre-k lesson until you bust out the Jose Orozco.

Week 6: Feelings, nothing more than feelings

Greetings Penguins,
Everyone has feelings, even tough old pirates!  We'll be reading Tough Boris by Mem Fox and talking about feelings.  We'll also spend some time describing ourselves.  Join us or walk the plank!

 You can expect your lesson to be in the children's native language for the first couple of months.  I'll switch to an alternating weekly schedule of English and Spanish at the beginning of November.  I feel this gives the children a chance to get the full complement of the library experience in their own language.

First Visit, for real this time!

Hello Penguins!
We really will have a little library time starting on Monday of next week. 
Let's add Curious George Visits the Library by H.A. Rey to our plans.  This is a wonderful classic that directly talks about how kids get all wiggly when they are listening to stories, I love it!

Change of Plans

Hello Penguins!
Looks like we've had a change in plans due to the dual language workshop so many teachers will be attending next week. 
We'll start library visits for students on September 19th. 
In the meantime,  please help yourselves to the wonderful materials in our library!

First Visit!

Hello!
I can't wait to start library visits with our Penguins next week!  We'll be talking about our library manners, learning a listening song and, of course, reading a story.
I've included the English and Spanish lyrics to the song in Pages, check the sidebar on the right.
Our story is Book Fiesta! by Pat Mora.

I hope everyone is settling in well and let me know if I can help in anyway.