Highlights High Five® January 2010 Parent/Teacher Guide
The Adventures of Spot (page 5)
- Ask children to describe what's happening in each picture. Then read the text.
- Help children focus on the print. Ask, "How many times does the word no appear on the page?"
- What is the first letter in Spot and Splinter? How many letters are in Spot? How many in Splinter?
As children describe what Spot and Splinter are doing, they build expressive language skills. When you help them focus on the text, they learn about print.
*Language Development: Speaking and Communicating (Uses an increasingly complex and varied spoken vocabulary.)
*Literacy: Print Awareness & Concepts (Recognizes a word as a unit of print, or awareness that letters are grouped to form words and that words are separated by spaces.)
*Literacy: Alphabet Knowledge (Increases in ability to notice the beginning letters in familiar words.)
Mac and Cheese Muffins (pages 32 and 33)
- Before reading these pages, ask children to explain how they think macaroni and cheese is made.
- Have children use the pictures to read the list of ingredients.
- If possible, make this recipe together.
When children help cook, they learn to measure and work with fractions. They also observe how mixtures are formed and changed. In this recipe, children discover that boiled pasta becomes soft and the pasta mixture becomes firm when baked.
*Mathematics: Number & Operations (Begins to associate number concepts, vocabulary, quantities, and written numerals in meaningful ways.)
*Science: Scientific Knowledge (Shows increased awareness and beginning understanding of changes in materials and cause-effect relationships.)
Let's Go to Turtle's Party! (bonus pages)
- After cutting out the cards, ask children to describe what they see on them.
- Help children focus on the words printed at the bottom of the cards. For example, you could point out that chipmunk and skunk both end with the letter k and gift, hat, and rabbit all end with a t. Frog ends with a g, and gift begins with a g.
- Explain how to play the game, and provide support as children play together.
Learning to play with others is an important skill that young children are beginning to develop. As they play this game, children must follow specific rules and wait for their turns. They also learn about classification by grouping cards into sets.
*Mathematics: Number & Operations (Begins to make use of one-to-one correspondence in counting objects and matching groups of objects.)
*Social & Emotional Development: Cooperation (Develops increasing abilities to give and take in interactions: to take turns in games or using materials; and to interact without being overly submissive or directive.)
* Early-childhood standards based on the U.S. Head Start Child Outcomes Framework.