Unit 4, Exploring Museums 24-25

The following Table Time Centers align to the learning objectives for Unit 4 and are intended to focus on fine motor development, social foundations, and oral language and communication skills. Select a few options from the choices provided, setting them out for arrival and students choice.

Instructional staff who are not supporting arrival should be conducting data collection and facilitating the major focus areas of this time: fine motor, social-emotional, and oral language development. Once students can engage with the materials independently, these centers can become an independent activity during small group rotations.

• Art Center: Design a Dinosaur (p. 9): assist students with cutting out the tracing of a dinosaur. Supply students with felt, foil, sand paper, craft feathers, or other materials with various textures to decorate them; Make a Crown (p. 11): supply students with pre-cut crowns OR paper with a zig zag line in the middle to cut their own crown. Provide them with cut out shapes, jewels, and other materials to decorate their crowns; Mosaic Castles (p. 11): Provide students with paper to create their castles. Students will use their fingers to tear colorful construction paper into small pieces to glue onto their castles.
• Construction Center: Castle Sizes (p. 13): have students create their castles on pieces of construction paper. Supply students with C4L 2D shapes for them to trace.  Allow them to trace using using a pencil or tape to make outlines; Unifix Cube Towers: Students will make towers of varying heights to compare using language like "shorter" and "taller." Students can count the Unifix cubes for each tower to find out which towers have "more" and "less."; Tower and Bridge Building (p. 14): provide the students with plastic cups. Have them use the cups to build tall towers, bridges, and castles.
• Games and Puzzles: Tangram/Shape puzzles: provide students with tangram puzzles and matching shapes for students to use, either bought or made yourself by cutting out shapes and laminating shapes and cards. You can make simple objects such as cars, trains, etc.; Shape Pictures (p. 17): Provide the students with colorful cut-out shapes, glue, and poster paper. Find out what the students can make with their cut-out shapes; Shape Mat Hop Board Game (p. 17): pre-make a gameboard and dice and use an item from the classroom as play pieces. 
• Writing Center: Tracing (p. 20): place traceable items in the writing center along with colored pencils and paper. Help the children with tracing strategies such as rotating the paper or moving their bodies to get a better angle; Letter Patterns (p. 20): Using magnets, foam, cut outs, or stickers, encourage students to use letters to make short letter patterns (AB or ABC patterns only); Museum Captions (p. 20): students can use the C4L letter cards and letter chart to make captions for museum items or pictures (photos of dinosaur fossils, toys from the classroom, or something students have made).

There are two Read Alouds each week for 3-year-old classrooms. Each Read Aloud title is completed in two parts over the course of two days. The first title is completed on Monday and Tuesday, and the second Read Aloud is completed on Thursday and Friday. 

The following adaptations are intended for use with the Connect4Learning lesson plans and are used when planning for 3-year-olds. Lesson plan pages are noted next to the titles.

"The Princess and the Pea" (p. 178)

• Day 1: Prior to the lesson, review the "Processes" box to support direct teaching of standards. Read the story, completing the "Introduce the Text" and "Read the Text" sections from page 178.
• Day 2: Reread the story while using the lesson from yesterday's reading as a review. Then complete the "After Reading" section on page 178. Instead of using "think-pair-share," discuss the questions as a group, guiding students to the answers as necessary.

"The Very Smart Pea and the Princess to Be" (p. 184)

• Day 1: Prior to the lesson, review the "Processes" box to support direct teaching of standards. Complete the lesson as described on page 184 up through the "Read the Text" section.
• Day 2: Finish the lesson as described on page 184 all the way through the "Continue the Learning" section.

Targeted Vocabulary

• Fairy tale
• Princess
• Prince
• Castle
• Real
• Imaginary

The following Connect lessons are completed during Week 5 for 3-year-old classrooms:

• Subitize! (p. 179, 185): Prior to the lesson, review the "Processes" box to support direct teaching of standards. Start with groups of 3, then 5.
• Teamwork-It Gets a Building Built! (p. 180): complete this activity, naming the jobs of the pictures you are presenting (e.g.,  stonemason, engineer). Consider having pictures of specific types of jobs from a construction site you can add to your construction zone after the activity. 
• Meet the Experts-Planners and Designers (p. 186): consider referring to block tower images you may have utilized from previous units, sharing these as "blueprints", or have simple blueprints students can use as visuals. Use pictures of block structures or items students have made during project time to teach that students can be "engineers".
• Prince and Princess Problem Solving (p. 192): consider utilizing visuals for problem and solution or 3 picture cards to represent beginning, middle, end of solving a solution.
• I Know What You're Thinking (p. 198): consider asking students to help you sort simple shapes - start with two attributes, then increase amount of attributes as students are ready.
• Meet the Experts-Construction Site (p. 199, 206): review the jobs on a construction site you are highlighting from the lesson "Teamwork-It Gets a Building Built!" - create or share the castle building steps you will be doing in small groups.
• How High? (p. 205): give students five blocks each for this activity or do up to 10 as a group.

The following Small Group lessons are taught in Week 5 for 3-year-old classrooms. The suggested adaptations are intended for use with the Connect4Learning lesson plans and are used when planning for 3-year-olds.

• Day 1, Writing Museum Captions (p. 181): Provide visuals of items that could be captioned. Use one word for captions or short phrases and allow students to add appropriate pre-writing strokes.
• Day 2, Numbers Memory (p. 188): Keep the numeral cards face up and turn the dot cards face down. Guide the students when labeling the numerals, then have them turn over the dot card to count and determine if they match.
• Day 3, Subitize! (p. 187): Have the students match the dots on C4L dot cards to the dots on the die, then place a cube over each dot to count the cubes. Alternatively, prior to the activity, create die with fewer dots on each side (e.g., a die with sides of one, two and three dots) for students to recognize the set.
• Day 4, Design a Castle (p. 200): Complete the first part of the activity by having the children help you re-create one of the block castles shown on a blueprint created in advance. Remind them that they are following a plan, kind of like the blueprints that architects and drafters use. Put the blueprints, precut labels, and other materials for building castles in the construction center.

The following Fast Focus lessons are completed during Week 5 for 3-year-old classrooms:

• Pattern Claps (p. 182): encourage students to copy simple rhythms by clapping, using rhythm sticks or musical instruments.
• The Letter Cc (p. 183): consider starting first with the letter "Cc" in students' names paired with the sounds they make. Use Lila to "find the friend" whose name starts with that letter. Then use physical objects that start with the letter "Cc".
• Simon Shows (p. 189): consider using dot cards up to 3, then 5.  As students are ready, consider having visuals of simple movements.
• Sound Match Cc, Jj, and Uu (p. 190): chose only two letters, using letters tubs to focus on one letter at a time, drawing attention to the beginning sounds.
• "I'm So Glad to See You" (p. 194): consider singing the rhyme up to 5 and then repeating, if times allows.
• The Letter Vv (p. 195): consider starting first with the letter "Vv" in students' names paired with the sounds they make. Use Lila to "find the friend" whose name starts with that letter. Then use physical objects that start with the letter "Vv".
• Cc and Vv Sort (p. 201): chose only two letters, using letters tubs to focus on one letter at a time, drawing attention to the beginning sounds.
• Conrad the Confused Crow Explores Shapes (p. 202): Prior to the lesson, review the "Processes" box to support direct teaching of standards. Review simple shapes; consider allowing students to each have their own set of shapes to hold up.

Children benefit from opportunities to interact on their own and with peers in self-guided play and from chances to interact with adults who scaffold learning experiences during play. The learning center suggestions provided for Unit 4 connect directly to the learning objectives for each C4L domain and allow children to deepen their understanding of target concepts and to practice target skills.

The following Unit 4 Learning Centers are provided for 3-year-olds during Weeks 1-2. Please see your Unit guide (p. 9-21) for more information about specific centers.

• Art Center: Painting with Bubbles (p. 11) Pre-make bubble solution using 1/2 cup dish detergent, 4 tablespoons glycerin, 4 and 1/2 cups of water and food coloring in a tub. Using a straw, the students can blow into the bubble solution to create bubbles across the surface then gently press the paper into the bubble.  Assist the students with blowing bubbles and pressing the paper onto the bubbles.
• Book Nook: Favorite Book Collection (p. 12) help students sort and categorize the books into book collections such as fiction and non-fiction, books about dragons, dinosaurs or castles, etc.
• Computer Center: work on the prerequisite skills by playing with cause and effect toys; iPad/Chromebook games; isolation of pointer finger; I Spy games, etc.
• Construction Zone: Dinosaur Bones (p. 13) provide students with C4L photos of dinosaur fossils, tape, and various recycled materials such as utensils, plastic bottles, paper towel rolls, etc.  Assist students with replicating dinosaur fossils with the recycled materials.
• Dramatic Play: Archeologists and Paleontologists (p. 14) provide students with items to be paleontologists and archeologists such as field vests, small paint brushes, dinosaur toys, pretend bones, rocks, shells and magnifying glasses.
• Exploration Center: Nature Collections (p. 17) help students explore for objects outdoors.  They can collect branches, leaves, small stones, and other items from nature.  Allow them to add the collections to their museum to display.
• Games and Puzzles: Math Magic (p. 18) start with numbers 1-5 and then build over time.  Students can put the cards down face up in the correct order then flip them over so they are face down.  Students can guess the numbers on the cards by using their magical powers and check by flipping the cards over.
• Listening Center: add recordings of adults reading the Read Aloud books.  Also add recordings of the students retelling Read Alouds.
• Show What You Know Center: "On Monday When it Rained" (p. 19) supply students with mirrors and cameras.  Students can practice making expressions to match the feelings of disappointment, frustration, and sadness. The students can take photos and videos of each other making these expressions and, for a challenge, telling stories for why they feel this way.
• Writing Center: Museum Invitations (p. 19) after starting invitations on week 5 day 3, provide materials for students to create or continue to work on their invitations.  Supply students with paper, crayons, markers, and examples of invitations.