Project Initiating Activity:
After reading the book Pete the Cat and The Perfect Pizza Party to Emilia, we talked about and learned the following terms: fractions: whole, half, and quarters; geometric shapes: circles, and collage: to cut, paste, and overlap. Inspired by the book, we discussed our favorite pizza toppings and thought of silly toppings for pizza as seen in the book.

Book Reference:
Dean, K. & Dean, J. (2019). Pete the cat and the perfect pizza party. HarperCollins Children’s Book.

1. Emilia learned about pizza fractions: whole, halves, and quarters. We played with a wooden pizza manipulative toy to talk about and visualize the whole and its parts. We did some pizza math by adding and subtracting pieces of pizza. She completed some coloring and cutting activities to practice pizza fractions: whole, halves, and quarters.
2. Emilia created her own artwork inspired by the book using paint and cut out felt to make a collage pizza.
3. Emilia also wanted to make a cookie pizza using paint and glitter.
4. Inspired by the book, we listened to and sang songs about pizza:
a. The Kiboomers On Top of My Pizza
b. Lankybox The Pizza Song
c. Parry Gripp Pizza Puppy

Emilia worked hard today and did excellent work!

National Core Arts Standards Pre K

VA:Cr1.2.PKa
Engage in self-directed, creative making.

VA:Cr2.1.PKa
Use a variety of artmaking tools.

VA:Cr2.3.PKa
Create and tell about art that communicates a story about a familiar place or object.

VA:Cr3.1.PKa
Share and talk about personal artwork.

MU:Pr4.3.PK
With substantial guidance, explore music’s expressive qualities (such as voice quality, dynamics, and tempo).

MU:Re7.1.PK
With substantial guidance, state personal interests and demonstrate why they prefer some music selections over others.

Emilia asked to use the dice as we did yesterday to play the addition game. I was delighted to accommodate her request to practice and consolidate skills. She then worked on an activity sheet coloring like sums like colors. This demonstrated the commutative property which states that the order in which two numbers are added does not change the sum, or that the sum remains the same no matter how the numbers are arranged. Subject-specific vocabulary included the term addends which was introduced and sum. After a short break, Emilia worked on an activity requiring that she count shapes and graph them and we reviewed two and three dimensional shapes. She also finished an art project using the shapes she found in nature and in her classroom to create a sunflower design - and asked to take it home when dry.

Project Initiating Activity:
Building upon our Mouse Paint primary color activity the previous day, I read the book Meet Piet Mondrian to Emilia. We talked about and learned the following terms: primary colors; geometric shapes: squares and rectangles; types of lines: horizontal, vertical, and diagonal; and abstract art: art that does not represent anything from real life. We found the Netherlands on the globe to locate Piet Mondrian's birthplace. Then I showed Emilia some artwork examples: Which one is a Mondrian? This exercise placed a Mondrian painting next to another abstract artwork. She was able to pick out four Mondrian paintings out of four.


Book Reference:
Read With You Center for Excellence in STEAM Education (2022). Meet Piet Mondrian. Read With You.

1. Emilia completed three activities to practice primary colors, lines, and abstract art in the style of Piet Mondrian using crayons and paints.
2. Emilia created her own artwork inspired by Piet Mondrian using primary and secondary colors, squares and rectangles, and different types of lines within the shape of a heart.
3. Inspired by Mondrian’s Broadway Boogie Woogie painting, we listened to music in the genre of Boogie and Big Band:
a. Cab Calloway The Calloway Boogie
b. The Andrew Sisters Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy
c. The Glenn Miller Orchestra Chattanooga Choo Choo
d. Various artists and songs in that genre.

I also played Relaxing Piano Music and Smooth Jazz for us to listen to while working. We talked about the instruments we were hearing. Emilia wanted to color an ice cream cone that our helper Miss Ever drew. She used her imagination to think of the kind of ice cream it would be and then added "sprinkles" of glitter and a "cherry" pom pom. Emilia shows good control over her art tools and enjoys creating!

National Core Arts Standards Pre K

VA:Cr1.2.PKa
Engage in self-directed, creative making.

VA:Cr2.1.PKa
Use a variety of artmaking tools.

VA:Cr2.3.PKa
Create and tell about art that communicates a story about a familiar place or object.

VA:Cr3.1.PKa
Share and talk about personal artwork.

MU:Pr4.3.PK
With substantial guidance, explore music’s expressive qualities (such as voice quality, dynamics, and tempo).

MU:Re7.1.PK
With substantial guidance, state personal interests and demonstrate why they prefer some music selections over others.

Emilia completed several activities pertaining to the short (e) sound and CVC words.

Emilia arrived with homework from Kumon and asked me to help her complete several pages of math problems in addition and a few reading passages. We used hands-on techniques using physical objects for her to touch and count; word problems and scenarios (e.g.; you invited eight friends to your birthday party but now 4 more friends have asked to come. If you agree, how many friends could come to your party?); we also used an abacus and a number line; dice and cards to help her understand and have fun doing math. The last technique resonated with her the most, and she began to request the dice to try more problems. Emilia enjoyed rolling the dice to solve addition problems and giggled with delight when she got the sum before me. We even added a third die and cards on which numbers were written to expand, transfer, and consolidate her gains. This activity proved more rewarding, less frustrating, and sustained her attention longer. I promised we would continue the activity tomorrow, and she enthusiastically told Esha upon leaving that she did all her math homework today. We also worked on reading comprehension. Emilia was assisted in a guided reading exercise to answer comprehension questions. She was afforded prompts and strategies when uncertain of the answer to help figure it out by referring back to the sentence and making logical predictions based on textual evidence given in the passage. In between our work we took a few short breaks during which we collected coconut shells outdoors, played a quick game of Jenga, Headbanz, and played drums.

Project Initiating Activity:
After reading the book Mouse Paint to Emilia, we talked about the following: primary colors, secondary colors, how to show primary and secondary colors using crayons, and how to mix colors using paints and brushes.


Book reference:
Stoll, E.S. (1989). Mouse paint. Clarion Books.


To assess Emilia’s coloring skills, she worked on that skill with jumbo crayons on a Mouse Paint worksheet. There were jars of paint that were ordered like a math equation: red + yellow = orange, and so on. She colored these beautifully and wanted to use paint for the last equation: red + blue = purple. She also completed an activity related to the story: three mice each dancing in a puddle. She colored one mouse red, one yellow, and one blue. Then we did some problem solving: the red mouse was dancing in a yellow puddle, and the puddle turned orange. She understood immediately and was able to complete the rest of the activity. She handled her crayons with skill and had good control over her marking tools. Then she did a color mixing exercise relating to the Mouse Paint book and created a color wheel with primary and secondary colors. She carefully squeezed out equal drops of primary color paint to mix her secondary colors. She also painted primary colors and mixed secondary colors on a separate activity with six white mouse shapes. She handled the brushes and paints well.

To assess skills and practice for Grade K, Emilia practiced safe scissor skills. We reviewed and practiced scissor safety: 1) how to walk safely with scissors, 2) how to safely pass scissors to a classmate, and 3) how to use scissors in a safe manner while honing good cutting skills. She then cut out each of the painted mice. She wanted to keep these separate instead of making a color wheel, so we made a pocket for each mouse to fit into and glued them on a sheet of paper. Emilia kept them in the order of the rainbow: Red, Orange, Yellow, Green, Blue, and Violet. She realized that her name has six letters, and there are three primary and three secondary colors. She wrote the letters of her name in the order of the rainbow on her mouse rainbow sheet.

She also wanted to paint a rainbow mouse and a pink mouse. She enjoyed working with the paints and brushes. I gave her a mouse shaped activity to color, cut out, and assemble.

Music:
While Emilia colored and painted, I had relaxing piano music playing that she said she enjoyed. Then when she was mixing her colors, I played the following songs that we sang along to and held up colors to go along with the music: 1) Primary Colors by Blippi, 2) Primary Colors Song by Gracie’s Corner, 3) So Blue by Baby Walrus & Nursery Rhymes & Kids Songs, 4) Yellow by Baby Walrus & Nursery Rhymes & Kids Songs, and 5) Something Red by Baby Walrus & Nursery Rhymes & Kids Songs. I had a display of flash cards, crayons, and pom poms in red, yellow, blue, green, orange, and purple to look at while the songs played. I also played a variety of kids songs and birds singing. Emilia stated that she did not like to hear the birds singing, but she enjoyed the piano music because it was calming.

It was a fun and productive first day!

National Core Arts Standards Pre K:

VA:Cr1.2.PKa
Engage in self-directed, creative making.

VA:Cr2.1.PKa
Use a variety of artmaking tools.

VA:Cr2.3.PKa
Create and tell about art that communicates a story about a familiar place or object.

VA:Cr3.1.PKa
Share and talk about personal artwork.

MU:Pr4.3.PK
With substantial guidance, explore music’s expressive qualities (such as voice quality, dynamics, and tempo).

MU:Re7.1.PK
With substantial guidance, state personal interests and demonstrate why she prefers some music selections over others.

Emilia completed putting together her August calendar, finished calendar talk and calendar writing, read her short (a) sight words, read and discussed a story from the first-grade reader, "Jack Can," learned about story details, worked on putting sentences together, and completed several activities pertaining to short (a) words.

It was nice to see Emilia again and she told me about her fun trip to Disneyland. She also showed me the contents of her lunch, and we counted the items, including the blueberries. Next, we reviewed some basic arithmetic facts, including parts of a whole and 2 and 3-dimensional shapes. She was prompted to identify some shapes in the classroom using the correct terminology. We finished our session playing a game of Math Bingo for which Emilia had to perform basic addition and subtraction problems in order to cover a square. I introduced terms such as vertical, horizontal, and diagonal to explain how to win a Bingo game. Emilia was afforded strategies and prompting techniques to facilitate performance, including the use of an abacus to add and subtract.

Emilia's familiarity to the foundational concepts of grouping and sharing was reinforced and she was shown examples of how creating equal groups relates to multiplication. I reinforced the idea of repeated addition, such as grouping sets of two or three to understand concepts like 2+2+2=6. Division is introduced to share objects equally among groups. An example would be to divide ten apples among five kids to understand that each child gets 2 apples - or the one used today was to share a pizza pie divided into quarters so that each of two children can receive two slices each. Visual aids, manipulatives, story problems, and real-world scenarios were used to reinforce these concepts. Emilia received additional practice to add and subtract and learn about the relationship between addition and subtraction using fact families. Emilia continues to receive encouragement to apply mental math strategies and simple problems for contextual understanding. For the problem, '8+5,' Emilia can choose to use a number line to start at 8 and move 5 spaces to reach 13. For '14-6,' she may use counters, starting at 14 and removing 6 to see the remainder. These activities and strategy options engage her and build familiarity with numbers and their relationships.

Emilia completed her calendar talk and calendar writing, assembled a circuit, read her sight words, finished her phonics activities, wrote a story, put together her daily sentence puzzle, and read, discussed and answered questions pertaining to a reading comprehension story.