Ms. Juanita Urrutia
Pre-kindergarten

Monthly Themes

December: Nursery Rhymes

November: Food

Unit: Food & Celebrations

Enduring Understandings:

• Healthy foods give us energy to grow and play.
• Foods can be divided into 5 groups - grains (bread, cereal, rice and pasta), vegetables, fruits, milk (yogurt, cheese, ice cream), meat and beans (meat, fish, poultry, eggs, beans, nuts, peanut butter).
• Vegetables, fruits, beans, grains, and nuts come from plants.
• Plants grow from seeds.
• We can plant a seed and watch it grow into a plant we can eat.
• Milk, eggs, meat, fish, chicken, bacon, and ham come from animals.  
• To grow healthy and strong we need to eat foods from the five groups.

Unit Goals and Essential Questions:

1. Take Responsibility For My Personal Growth, Safety, And Wellbeing.

• Understand that nourishment, physical activity and rest are necessary for growth.
• Identify which foods are healthy and which foods are unhealthy.
• Show an awareness of healthy eating.

Essential Questions

• Why do we eat?
• What do we eat?
• What foods help us to grow big and strong?
• Which foods don’t help us to grow big and strong?
• What foods should we eat all the time? Why?
• What foods should we only eat sometimes? Why?

2. Develop An Awareness Of My Social And Cultural Heritage.

• Show an understanding of my roles and responsibilities in my family life.
• Understand personal family or cultural heritage through daily routines, stories, songs, and celebrations.
• Value the cultural similarities and differences in clothes, homes, food, language, and cultural traditions between families.

Essential Questions

• What things do we do before we eat? While we eat? After we eat? Why?
• What do we do before we cook food? While we cook food? After we cook food? Why?
• What foods do we eat at home? How do we eat them? When do we eat them? Why do we eat them?
• What foods do we eat on special celebrations and holidays? Why?
• Does everyone eat the same foods? Why? How do you know?

3. Engage In Science Inquiry.

• Observe and describe the properties of common objects (food) using the five senses.

• Compare and sort common objects (food) based on one physical attribute.
• Communicate observations orally and in drawings.

Essential Questions

• Where does food come from?
• What does (name of food) look like? Feel? Sound like? Smell like? Taste like?
• How is (name of food) similar to (name of food)?
• What characteristics do fruits, vegetables, grains, meats, beans, and dairy foods share?
• Do we cook all foods? Why do we cook some foods, but not others? How do we know which foods to cook and which foods not to cook?
• What happens to food when it gets cooked? Why?
• Where should we store food? Why?

4. Engage In Data Analysis.

• Sort and classify objects (food) according to their attributes and organize data about the objects.

Essential Questions

• How can we divide foods into groups? Why?
• What are our pre-kindergartners favorite foods? – Make a survey and graph.
• What are our pre-kindergartners least favorite foods? – Make a survey and a graph.
• What are our family’s favorite foods? – Make a survey and a graph

Unit Skills and Knowledge

Language Development:

• Demonstrate increasing knowledge, understanding and skill in my use of Standard English.
• Listen attentively to seek information and clarify understandings.
• Recognize and use cues and visual stimuli that aid comprehension.
• Respond with relevant comments, questions, and actions.
• Express ideas, thoughts and feelings verbally and non-verbally.
• Talk about what I see, hear, touch, feel and taste.
• Construct and deliver messages with purpose and confidence.

Literacy Development:

• Demonstrate attentive viewing and listening.
• Observe, recognize, and use environmental print, numbers, signs, patterns and symbols.
• Make associations between pictures and symbols, and pictures and print.
• Become aware of the relationship between print and meaning in my early writing and reading.
• Play and experiment with language, sounds and patterns.
• Listen to and identify initial sounds in words.
• Participate in choral reading of recipes.
• Read and examine the schematic structure of procedure texts - recipes.
• Jointly construct recipes.
• Draw and label pictures of foods.
• Make books related to foods.

Social Development:

• Listen and respond to other people’s thoughts, feelings and perspectives respectfully.
• Share information about myself (likes, dislikes, and family traditions).
• Talk about special holidays and celebrations.
• Contribute in a variety of ways as a member of a group.
• Engage in activities, sharing and turn-taking.

Science Inquiry, Ideas & Language:

• Use my five senses to describe a variety of foods.
• Describe the difference between solids and liquids.
• Identify which foods are solid and which are liquids.
• While cooking, observe and describe chemical changes.
• Discover that heating or mixing things can change odors, textures, and tastes, but that a change in outward appearance doesn’t always mean a change in flavor.

Mathematical Ideas & Language:

• Measure ingredients to develop an understanding of quantity.
• Compare foods of different weights and sizes.
• Sort, categorize, compare and describe different foods.
• Understand data: Gather, organize, interpret and communicate information related to food.

• Charts: Contribute to the making of a food pyramid and Venn Diagrams comparing different foods.
• Graphs: Contribute to the making of graphs showing food preferences.
• Surveys: Jointly develop a survey to find out food preferences of family members.
• Patterns: Create math patterns using foods.
• Daily Problem: Read and solve problems related to food.
• Number Concepts: How many do we have? How can we share the amount we have equally among students?

Movement & Music:

• Talk about my physical health and the benefits of a healthy diet, physical activity, and rest.
• Engage in different physical activities and games.
• Improve the coordination of gross and fine motor skills.
• Develop spatial awareness and move confidently in space.
• Show muscle strength, postural control, and coordination.
• Perform different movement patterns with growing skill.

Art and Design:

• Use different media (clay, paint, and recycled materials) to create 2-D and 3-D projects related to food.
• Represent ideas, feelings and understandings through art work.
• Use materials and tools in a safe and responsible manner.
• Show aesthetic awareness (color, shape, textures, and space).

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October: Make Believe

Unit: Make Believe Play

Pretending to be - Fairy tale characters in fairy tale places.

Dressing up - Making clothes and costumes for our pretend play.

Halloween Fantasy - Ghosts, monsters, witches and bats.

Enduring Understandings:

• We learn through play.
• We can make new friends when we play with others.
• Make believe play allows us to be anything we want to be.
• We can use our imagination to do and make different things.
• There is a difference between real and make believe. We need to know the difference.

Essential Questions:

• Why do we play?
• What can we do with our imagination?
• What does real mean?
• What does make believe mean?
• How do we know when something is real?
• How do we know when something is make believe?

Unit Goals: We will…

• Explore imagined worlds through play.
• Interpret ideas and concepts through shared and individual creative expression.
• Collaborate in inquiry, exploration, problem solving, and play.
• Develop caring relationships with others.
• Explore movement and the awareness of our bodies and weight in space.
• Develop a range of thinking and problem solving skills.
• Demonstrate increasing knowledge, understanding and skill in the use of Standard American English.

Language Development:

• Understand that we can communicate ideas and concepts through symbols.
• Express ideas, thoughts and feelings verbally and non-verbally.
• Begin to adapt language to suit different contexts and audiences.
• Construct and deliver messages with purpose and confidence.
• Create and deliver dialogues during dramatic play, story telling, role plays and reenactments.

Literacy Development:

• Demonstrate attentive viewing and listening.
• Participate in choral reading of fairy tales.
• Read and examine the schematic structure of fairy tales.
• Talk about characters – good & bad and what actions qualify them as such.
• Identify language of fairy tales – once upon a time, lived happily ever after, long ago, far away, and repetitive words and phrases.
• Identify conventions in fairy tales – the number 3, talking beasts, villains, magic, ogres, heroes, magical objects, spells, wishes, kings, princesses.
• Sequence the events in fairy tales.
• Draw pictures of fairy tale characters and settings.
• Jointly construct story maps of favorite fairy tales.
• Jointly write dialogues for reenactments of fairy tales.

Social Development:

• Identify the behaviors that fairy tale characters could change to show wisdom.

• Goldilocks – Manners.
• Wolf – Self control.
• Little Pigs – Thinking before doing.

Science Inquiry & Language:

• Identify resources available and decide how resources can be used and adapted for creative purposes or dramatic scenarios.
• Test materials – Will they work? Can we build what we want with them? Will our products last?
• Use materials, equipment and processes to design and develop outfits, costumes, fantasy sets, masks, puppets.

Mathematical Ideas & Language:

• Charts: Contribute to the making of Venn Diagrams comparing fairy tales and characters.
• Patterns: Create math patterns using characters and things from fairy tales.
• Daily Problem: Read and solve problem that fair tale characters have.
• Number Concepts: How many do we have? How many more do we need?
• Size: Compare and identify size differences.

Movement & Music & Social Studies

• Enact fairy tales through physical movements and songs.
• Hear command movements and show what that movement looks like upon request.
• Represent various feelings and ways of moving in games of freeze.
• Discover how different types of vehicles and air and land transports move as they take us to magical and fantasy lands.

Art and Design:

• Use different media (clay, paint, recycled materials) to create 2-D and 3-D projects related to the fairy tales read.
• Represent ideas, feelings and understandings through art work.
• Use materials and tools in a safe and responsible manner.

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September: Making Things

Unit: Exploring shapes, textures, colors and materials.

Enduring Understandings and Essential Questions

1. We can use our imagination, our bodies and different materials to create new things.

• People enjoy the challenge of creating something new from scratch.
• Creating things requires planning, problem solving, organization, flexibility and patience.
• The process of creation is MORE important than the end product.
• Things we make may not always come out the way we want them to, but we learn many things while we make them.
• We need to feel proud of our creativity and our effort.
• Creation requires flexibility. Sometimes we need to change our plans.

Why do we make things? How do we make things? How do we feel when we make things? How can we teach others to make things? What should we do if we can’t make what we want?

2. Signs, symbols, environmental print, and texts (oral and written) provide us with information that helps us to discover and learn new things.

• We can teach others how to do something when we give them instructions.
• Instructions or procedure texts (oral and written) tell us how to do something.
• We can read and write procedure texts to learn how to do things and to teach others how to do things

Why do we read and write? What do we do when we read and write? What are procedure texts used for? How are they organized?

Unit Goal: To allow children the opportunity to manipulate, explore, experiment and become acquainted with a variety of materials and ways of using them to create different products.

Unit Skills and Knowledge

Investigating Skills: What are these materials like? How are they used? What can we make with them?

• Exploring and experimenting.
• Observing and describing.
• Ordering, matching, comparing and classifying.
• Making hypothesis and testing them.
• Asking and answering questions.
• Communicating ideas and findings.

Science and Mathematical Knowledge, Ideas and Skills:

• Conceptualizing quantity and size - counting, measuring, cutting, attaching and adding materials.
• Conceptualizing length, width, height, depth and weight – holding, filling, pouring, carrying, lifting.

• Conceptualizing texture - rough, smooth, bumpy, soft, hard, shiny, dull, slimy, sticky, tacky.
• Properties of materials – describing materials and telling how they are alike or different.
• How things change.

Fine Motor Skills and Hand-Eye Coordination (necessary skills for reading and writing):

• Twisting, rolling, folding, punching, tearing, and cutting different kinds of paper.
• Pasting, gluing, paper macheing and taping.
• Pounding, rolling, molding and shaping.
• Painting, coloring, printing, drawing, copying and tracing.
• Filling, pouring and mixing.

Color Concepts:

• Names of colors.
• Understanding that colors are not set things, but things that can be changed.
• Exploring how to mix colors and how to make colors lighter or darker.

Shape and Line Concepts:

• Names of shapes.
• Making shapes – drawing, tracing, cutting.
• Types of lines – straight, curved, dotted, horizontal, vertical.
• Making and cutting lines.

Unit Student Expectations

• Demonstrate self-knowledge.
• Self-regulate their behavior.
• Relate positively to others.
• Show respect for the ideas and products of others.
• Celebrate their success and the success of others.
• Understand that the process of design is more important than the end product.
• Work independently and in groups.
• Cooperate with their peers and contribute in a variety of ways as members of a group.
• Express what they think, feel, need and want.

• Identify production goals.
• Generate ideas for own designs through the process of exploration, brainstorming, sharing skills and knowledge, problem-solving, trial and error, models, drawings and images.
• Demonstrate creativity, flexibility and fluency of ideas.
• Ask questions, find and gather information, and consider different alternatives.
• Begin to plan and articulate the steps that will be followed to achieve the design goal.
• Begin to plan for safety and careful use of equipment and resources.
• Use materials, tools, equipment and processes to create products.
• Experiment with a range of natural and processed materials.
• Make and state observations.
• Discover and explain the different properties, benefits and limitations of materials and tools being explored.
• Make choices and decisions.
• Engage in problem solving.
• Explore and articulate the function and use of equipment and materials.
• View, choral read, and help to write procedure texts.
• Begin to identify some of the features of procedure texts.
• Make comments regarding conventions of print they notice.

The Study of Genre: Procedure Texts = Instructions

Students will view, choral read, and help write instructions to create different materials (e.g. clay, play dough, paper mache paste) and products. As students view, choral read, follow and help to write procedure texts they will come to understand that:

• The purpose of a procedure text is to tell how something is to be done through a sequence of steps or actions.
• Procedure texts include a goal, a list of materials, steps, and sometimes diagrams or illustrations.
• The steps to be followed are numbered or begin with words such as - first, after that, then, last - to indicate the order that needs to be followed.
• The first word of each step is often a verb telling the reader or listener what to do (e.g., cut, paste, paint).
• Sentences begin with capital letters and end with periods.

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August: School

Unit: We are in school!

Student goals for the first two weeks of school:

• Explore, explore, explore!
• Enjoy school.
• Meet and trust their teachers.
• Meet new friends.
• Play with their new friends.
• Discover and use different materials and supplies in school.
• Discover different places in school.
• Discover things they can do in school.
• Get used to being in school.
• Learn basic classroom procedures.
• Show self-care skills.
• Think and talk about appropriate school behaviors.
• Follow directions.

Enduring understandings for the first two months of school:

1. School is a fun place where we can play, discover, learn, and make new friends.

• Following routines and procedures keeps us safe and happy.
• Knowing where things are and how to use them helps us to enjoy our play, complete our work, and feel proud.

2. Getting along with others creates positive, happy feelings.

• To get along with others we need to think about them, show respect, be polite, listen, take turns, and share.

3. We need to cooperate and help each other.

• It is easier to get things done when we work together.
• To help each other we need to seek help for ourselves and for others, we need to listen to each other, and to ask and answer questions that will help us to understand what we want and what others want.

4. We need to participate in activities, play and exploration to learn.

• We need to tell how we feel, what we think, what we see and hear, and what we need.
• We need to follow instructions, handle materials with care, and keep our work areas clean.
• We need to try new activities to discover what we like and dislike, what skills we have and what skills we want to develop and practice.
• When we play and when we are physically active we discover things about ourselves and our environment.
• To have enough energy to play and move we need to eat healthy foods, sleep and rest.

Essential questions for the first two months of school:

1. Why do we come to school? How do we feel when we come to school? What do we do at school? Who do we see at school? What things do we find at school? What are centers and what do we do in them? Why do we need agreements at school? What are our pre-k agreements? Why do we need to fulfill our agreements? What happens when we don’t fulfill agreements?

2. How can we make sure that we have good, happy days at school? What things can we do to make friends?

3. Why do we need to help each other? What things can we do that show that we are helping others? Why is it important to be polite?

4. Why do we need to participate? What are some things we need to do to show that we are active participants? Why do we play? What things do we learn when we play? Why is it important to play and be physically active? How can we make sure we have enough energy to play?