Cat's Colors

The second lesson I did with my K and 1 kiddos in summer school was to read Cat's Colors by Jane Cabrera.

The book starts with a question mark filled with different colors, which makes a perfect place to gauge prior knowledge. 

Next, the author asks what Cat's favorite color is and I love using that for share time. My K students usually just say their own favorite color and that makes a perfect opportunity to talk to them about point of view even if they can't quite grasp it. I also give them time to talk about their own favorite color. For me, share time is essential to read alouds because kids need to connect with you, connect with the book, and they need to feel like they are heard and they matter. 

The rest of the book takes you through the different colors and Cat gives you an itwm or two that matches that color. Of course we share some more and brainstorm other ideas. 

After the book is done I had different colored pieces of paper stuck on the wall. I put at least four different pieces of each color on the wall somewhere in the library. When I called a color they had to go find the color. They also could only have four people at each paper. This was a great brain break and only takes a minute or two to set up. 

You can do any age appropriate coloring sheet and pair another color book with the lesson.

No Puppies Today Lesson

No Puppies Today by Joanna Cole is a cute book that is great to talk about counting, animals, and character feelings. I taught this lesson in summer school with my kindergarten and first graders.

First, I love to have kids connect somehow to the book. For this one my kids got to tell what animals they have at home. Then we read the book and predicted which animal she would get next, roared like lions, talked about the word bison, counted, and added. 

Once we were done with the book, they got a paper to draw any pet they wanted to take home. Kindergarten got a blank paper and I wrote the name of their animal at the top. First graders got a traditional writing page with a blank space for a drawing and lines for them to write a sentence. 

The last part of the lesson is to pair another book and this one perfectly paired with a non-fiction on animals. We happen to have a set of non-fiction books on baby animals in the library so that's what we read aloud to wrap things up.