Theme unit: Families

Children enjoy talking about their families and what makes them special.  There are many books about families (and animal families) in the TLC library.  Because TLC works so closely with families, you may want to think about how children can share their excitement of families with each other: “What songs does your family sing at home?  What stories do you like to read all together?”  When parents come to pick up children from class, ask them about to tell stories about their family or answer questions: what is your favorite family food?  Use this information in future lessons!  

Learning Opportunities
-Characters in a story (the people or animals in our story) Talking about family members may connect students to the people they read about in stories.  While reading books in this theme, have students point out the family members, and some words that describe them. 
-Classification (Who is the boy? Who is the girl?  Who is the mom?)
-Class book: Creating a class book based on a model book (in this case, “Does Kangaroo Have a Mother” gives students the opportunity to enjoy retelling the story to their friends or teacher.  Another option after creating a class book, is to encourage students to make their own book to bring home. 
-People/Animals sort
-Size sort

Reader’s Workshop Lesson Ideas
1.       “Does a Kangaroo Have a Mother Too?” This is a great repetitive text to read.  After reading through the book one time, read once again, this time have the students read with you.  Use book to model tracking the print with your finger.

2.       “The Relatives Came” Because there is a lot of text in this book, this books provides a great model to read the pictures and talk about what is happening in the story.  You can show what you do if you can’t read the words in a story, “You read the pictures because you CAN read”.  This book also provides opportunities to talk about the characters in the book, the setting, and the beginning, middle and end. 

Writer’s Workshop Lesson Ideas
1.       Class book: After reading the book, “Does a Kangaroo Have a Mother, Too?” make a class book.  Children cut pictures of an animal from magazines or draw them (or both) and glue them to page.  Encourage older students to illustrate or write their own texts.  Younger class memberscan use the magazines or work in pairs.  Book can be read as a class.  Each page of the book says, “A_____has a mother too.  Just like me and you.” 

2.       Cateory/List: Children cut out pictures of people from magazines.  Have pieces of paper divided into two sections: “children” and “parents”.  Students decide which category to glue the people cut-outs to.  Alternate activity: classify pictures as “boys” and “girls”. Model to students how to divide the page into two and write the words boys/girls or words they connect to: moms, dads, kids. 

3.       My Family: Choose a book about family to read from the resource bin.  Have students partner talk about their family.  “Who is in your family?”  Model writing about your family.  Draw family members and write about something you like to do together.  Have students write about their families.  Have students share their writing. 

Activities
Family Graph Ask each child how many people are in their family and graph the results.  

Who Would Use This? Collect materials that different family members might use. (Slippers, tie, diaper, dog bone, lipstick, hair bow, baseball, etc) Have your class go through the box and pull out items one at a time.  Ask them who in their family uses the item and how they use it. 

Craft Ideas
Family Puppet
Materials: Use photocopy of ginger man silhouettes found in the Theme binder, misc. beads/fabric
Directions:  Have children think about who is in their family.  Model cutting out the number of people in your family and talk about the different sizes on the ginger man page.  Students can cut out the silhouettes of their family members and decorate.  These puppets can be used as is or glued onto Popsicle sticks to be used during free play. 

Monster Family:
Materials: straws, paper, paint, google eyes, markers
Directions:Have children create paint monsters!  Using straws and small circles of tempera paint, model dipping the end of a straw into the paint and lightly blowing the paint onto the paper. (Mention to students that if they use TOO much paint, the paint will not dry in time for them to finish and take their art home). See what happens when you use multiple colors.  Let the paint dry while you sing songs or make a Family Graph.  After paint is dry, glue on googly eggs and draw silly faces.  Have the students can make up a story about their Monster Family and share in a group circle.  Count how many monsters are in each family!

Songs and Fingerplays
Sung to: "Ten Little Indians"
Some have fathers,
Some have mothers,
Some have sisters,
Some have brothers.
In some houses,
There are others.
Every family's special

Sung to: "Bingo"
I have a very special friend
And Daddy is his name-o.
D-A-D-D-Y, D-A-D-D-Y, D-A-D-D-Y,
And Daddy is his name-o

Sung to: "Bingo"
I have a very special friend
And Mommy is her name-o.
M-O-M-M-Y, M-O-M-M-Y, M-O-M-M-Y,
And Mommy is her name-o