(playful music) - Hello, little learners.

Welcome back to our pre-K and TK classroom.

My name is Ms. Lara.

And as always, I'm here to be your teacher today.

Now, do you remember what we're studying this week?

Well, it's about that time when you're gonna move from one grade to another and that new grade is called kindergarten.

So today is day three of the five days that we're gonna learn about our new school and grade level that we're going to be going into.

See, three on the bottom, one, two, three.

So let me tell you about our time together.

Today, we're gonna sing our song "Marmalade and Jam."

We're gonna make our rhythm.

We're gonna learn some words and I have a good book about a pigeon to share with you, a pigeon that goes to school.

Oh my, what is that pigeon going to do?

Then, we're gonna make some rhymes and finish off with the project so you can take the learning home with you and continue to practice.

So are you ready to get started?

Okay, let's sing our song.

Do you remember we need a rhythm?

Let's pat, clap.

Pat, clap.

That's a pattern, isn't it?

Pat, clap.

Here we go.

♪ Bread and butter, marmalade and jam ♪ ♪ Let's say, "Hello," as quiet as we can ♪ Here we go.

Hello.

♪ Bread and butter, marmalade and jam ♪ ♪ Let's say, "Hello," as loud as we can ♪ Here we go.

Hello!

♪ Bread and butter, marmalade and jam ♪ ♪ Let's say, "Hello," as slow as we can ♪ Hello.

♪ Bread and butter, marmalade and jam ♪ ♪ Let's say, "Hello," as fast as we can ♪ Hello.

That was really fast, wasn't it?

♪ Bread and butter, marmalade and jam ♪ ♪ Let's say, "Hello," as high as we can ♪ Hello.

♪ Bread and butter, marmalade and jam ♪ ♪ Let's say, "Hello," as low as we can ♪ Our final hello, way down on the floor.

Hello.

That's a funny song, isn't it?

My favorite part of saying the hello, ninja fast.

So you can't hear it.

All right.

Let's go over to our vocabulary words.

These are three words that you're going to need to learn in order to understand our story.

And our story today is called, "The Pigeon HAS to Go to School".

And here are the three words.

Number one is scared.

Special letter S, scared.

You might make this face when you're scared.

(gasps) Yeah, so when something surprises you, but scared is a feeling and it's a feeling you feel deep in your body, you fear and panic and you might get hot.

Maybe you're walking down the street and a big dog comes and barks at you.

(gasps) You would be scared.

The next word is stressed, stressed.

Can you say it with me?

Stressed.

You might hear grown-ups say this word a lot.

Stress is also a feeling word.

And it's when you are worried or uncomfortable about something.

Oh, and it looks like we just had two words today.

Those are big feeling words that you need to know.

In our story, the pigeon is both scared and stressed.

So let's see if it has a happy ending.

"The Pigeon HAS to Go to School."

Now, if you look at the title, we'll see that HAS is all in upper case letters.

That mean, that's really, really important.

They have to go.

And look, does the pigeon look happy about it?

Ooh, I don't know.

His eyes are kind of closed.

He's looking away and his arms are like this.

I don't think he wants to go to school.

Now, I want you to think, do pigeons really go to school?

No, they don't really go to school.

So this is a work of fiction, that means, it's make-believe, and it was written by Mo Willems.

So let's open it up.

There's the pigeon looking scared.

He says, "Wait!

Don't read that title!"

"The Pigeon HAS to Go to School!"

Too late, I already read the title.

"Too late.

Rats.

Why do I have to go to school?"

Look there he is looking angry.

"Why?"

"I already know everything!"

There he is.

"Go on, ask me a question, any question!"

Okay, let's think of a question.

Turn your brain power way up.

What's a question that's really hard, that would mean that you didn't have to go to school if you knew the answer?

(gasps) 2,000,000,353 times 700 million.

Let's see if he got it.

Do you think he'll get the answer right?

Oh, no, he is thinking, he's like, "No."

"Well, I know almost everything.

Does "school" start in the morning?"

Huh, huh, huh?

"Because you know what I'm like in the morning!

It is not pretty."

Here he is waking up in the morning.

"I wish I was a little chick again.

A little-itty-bitty-not-going-to-school-baby-wabie pigeon!"

Why could I be a pigeon anymore?

Look there, he's holding his baby picture.

"What if I don't like school?

What if I really don't like it!?

What if?

(gasps) What if?"

Oh no.

"What if the teacher doesn't like pigeons?"

There he is, thinking about it.

He looks stressed, even his feathers are falling off.

"And the stuff!

What about all the stuff!?

There is so much stuff to learn!"

Look, there he is.

There's too much to learn.

"What if I learn too much!?!

What if I learn so much that, My head pops off."

What do you think?

Do you think it's possible to learn so much that your head pops off?

This pigeon is worried or is he scared?

Let's read.

"I'm scared."

He is saying and stating his feeling, isn't he?

He is worried about what's gonna happen next.

Look, there he is.

"What will happen at school!?"

He's so worried, he's down on the floor.

All his feathers are everywhere.

He's even a different color.

Oh, no, poor pigeon is so stressed.

"What if there is math or numbers?

Why does the alphabet have so many letters?!

Reading can be hard with one big eye!

And what about lunch!?!

What will the other birds think of me?

Will finger paints stick to my feathers?"

Even though painting's fun, pigeon is worried about getting all messy.

"What's up with that heavy backpacks?

I'm just a little bird, I can't carry something so heavy.

The unknown stresses me out."

You can see, he's shaking right there.

He's so nervous.

What can you do when you're stressed out?

Let's see a pigeon figures it out.

"There should be a place to practice those things!!!"

he said with this fist shaking.

"With experts to help you.

And books.

And classrooms.

And other things.

And work and things to play with.

Maybe a playground."

Is there such a place, can you think?

Is there a place with books and a playground and experts or someone who teaches you maybe?

Hmm.

"Oh, wait.

That is school."

Look, this light bulb means he had an idea and his idea was, that's what school is, isn't it?

"Well, how am I supposed to get there, anyway!?!"

Do you guys know how some people get to school?

Maybe you've seen it driving by, it's a big yellow bus.

"Whaaa, whaaa!?!"

♪ The wheels on the bus go round and round ♪ I wonder if that's gonna help him with the stress.

He seems to really like the bus.

"Step aside!

Coming through!

The Pigeon HAS to go to school!"

So all of a sudden he found something good to focus on, something that he liked, the bus.

And so he forgot about out all of his worry and stress, and he got on board.

And look, these are all of his classmates ready for school.

And even the pigeon right here in the front, he was so scared, and it looks like he likes school after all.

So I hope that you enjoyed this book by Mo Willems.

I'm gonna share in the project place another classic book that you might have read by him that also involves our character, the pigeon.

So if you're scared about school, think about what the pigeon did when he was scared or stressed, focused on something he liked, something good.

All right.

Something good is exactly what we're going to work on right now.

Guess what?

The pigeon came up to me and said, "Don't let me make a rhyme.

Don't you dare make rhymes in front of me.

Rhyming is not my thing."

Well, we know about the pigeon that he does not like things at first, but then, he gets used to them.

So I thought, we'll make a rhyme together.

So help me find the two words that rhyme to put on our board and see if pigeon likes them after all.

So I took some words that were from the story that I thought you would help me with.

So let's try to find a rhyme for better, better.

Hmm, what's something that rhymes with better?

Now, it might be something that you learn at school and something in the alphabet.

You have a special one, a letter.

Better, letter.

They both say, etter, they rhyme.

Okay, pigeon, one set of rhyme.

So let's see if we can make more.

What's something that rhymes with mess, mess?

Think about rhyming words.

They sound the same at the end.

Mess.

How about that feeling you feel when you're kind of scared and nervous, because you don't know what's gonna happen next?

Stress.

That's right.

Let's see if I wrote that one down.

Here it is.

Stress and mess are rhyming words.

Let's see if we can make some more rhymes together.

How about prepared?

Prepared is what you feel when you're ready for something like you might be prepared for school.

Let's think about the ending prepared.

What's a word that rhymes with prepared?

The one I have here is the feeling word and this is the face you make when you feel it.

Are you ready?

(gasps) Scared.

That's right.

Prepared, scared.

They both say, ared.

Let's do a few more together.

Let's see.

How about learn, learn?

Of course, you learn at school and we're gonna read a book later this week that shows us that school is everywhere.

We do learning all the time.

But what's a word that rhymes with learn, learn?

Let's see.

I have tool, school.

Not that one.

Ooh, something's really, really hot.

It might burn.

That's right.

Learn, burn.

They both say urn.

They rhyme.

Look how many rhymes we have so far.

One, two, three, four.

We're not listening to the pigeon.

We're making so many rhymes.

Let's make two more.

What is a word that rhymes with bus?

Do you remember at the end, the only thing that got the pigeon to snapped out of it was seeing that big yellow bus?

Think bus.

Hmm.

What rhymes with bus?

How about fuss?

Fuss, bus.

They both say us.

That's right.

A fuss is something you make when your causing a lot of trouble about something.

Last one, and it's one of my favorite words.

And I think it's gonna be one of your favorite words too when you get to kindergarten, it's school, school.

So let's see school and tool.

Let's get a tool up here.

School, tool.

They both say ool.

Look at all of our rhyming words.

Remember, rhyming words sound the same at the end.

Let's review them and see if you can hear the patterns and the sounds.

Better, letter.

Mess, stress.

Bus, fuss.

School, tool.

Prepared, scared.

And learn and burn.

Can you think of other rhyming words?

Can you think of a word that rhymes with orange?

If you can, let me know.

Really hard one to rhyme with.

Okay, so we're gonna go over to our project place now, because I love to leave you with an activity so that you can practice your reading skills at home with your family.

So let's walk over there and I'll tell you the materials that you're going to need.

Ready?

Let's go.

So today's project is a fun interactive way to practice your letters.

It's an alphabet fishing game.

Now I loved having this in my classroom and it was always the one that kids would run to during independent exploration.

So I'm gonna show you how you can make this at home.

The supplies that you're going to need is some paper, a stick of some sort.

So you can use one that you buy or you can use a stick that you find outside.

Some yarn.

I have this yarn.

Scissors, a magnet.

Now these can be a little hard to find.

I happen to have two magnets at home, but if you don't have a magnet like this, you have an old refrigerator magnet that you put on your refrigerator, you can actually take the back of that off and use that magnet.

Or you can go to the store and buy one.

And you're going to need some paperclips because the paperclip and the magnet stick together.

And right now we're not investigating why, but that might be somewhere learning that you can do at home.

So we're gonna start off.

I have a tray here just so we can put our fish when we're all done.

We're gonna start off making a template.

Now we have made templates here before.

And you'll remember, a template is just a form that you cut out or use to make other forms like it.

So I'm going to make a fish template.

So I'm gonna use my green paper and I'm gonna make the shape of a fish.

So I know that a fish is kind of round, has a round head like this.

And then it has a tail that looks like two triangles like this.

So this is my template.

Did you see the shape?

Does this kind of look like a fish?

Slippery fish, slippery fish.

Then I'm going to cut it out using my scissors.

So I'm gonna cut all the way around it.

Now you're gonna wanna make your fish nice and big like this, because we're going to be writing letters on them.

So if you make teeny tiny fish, you're not gonna be able to see the letters and the whole ideas that you are finding a fun way to practice letter recognition skills, letter sound skills, you can do this with numbers, anything that you're working on.

Rhymes, that would be fun too.

So here is my template.

Now I'm going to use that and stack some pieces of paper on top.

I always save my paper and have lots of different colors, just like this.

And you can trace it, but I think I'm just gonna cut it out, because I'm gonna use my thumb to hold it in place.

But again, you can trace around it and then cut them.

I'm stacking them, because it makes it faster to cut lots of them at a time.

So we'll cut these together, going around.

And you don't wanna stack too many on top, because, then you will not be able to cut through them, it'll be too thick.

Okay, then a tail.

And then, oh, I'm gonna cut out this triangle part.

Now, do we throw away our paper?

Goodness, no, we can save that and use it for other things.

So I'm gonna put it here to the side.

So now we have our fish and I'm gonna add it to my pile, because I knew I wouldn't have lots of time with you.

So I cut some out.

Look at all these fish.

The next step is I'm gonna write some letters on my fish.

Now you can just go through the alphabet if you'd like.

So I'm gonna write A right here.

Or you can write only those letters that you're working on.

So for me, I'm just gonna go through the alphabet.

There's so many fun ways that you can extend this activity.

So you can actually call out things that start with that letter and then your child has to go through and find the letter.

You can try to fish for them in order.

That would be a lot of fun.

You can fish for words.

E, F, G. And as extension, of course, there can be writing, 'cause you're writing the letters, or if you're not ready to do that, you can actually use stickers.

And tomorrow, I'll show you how I use stickers to make a flower farm that you can also put an alphabetical order.

J, and last one is K. Here we go.

So there are all my letters.

Now the next step is we're gonna make them magnetized.

So we're gonna put some paperclips on them.

You could also use rings.

I've seen people use rings.

So I'm just gonna put a paperclip so it looks like this.

Kind of looks like the mouth of the fish, huh?

Two, three.

I wonder how many I have.

Four.

There's the J.

While I continue to do this, go and grab your stick and your yarn, because this is the fun part.

We're actually gonna fish for the letters.

I have more here, G. I have one, two, three, four more.

So I need four more paperclips.

It looks like I have one there.

One, two, three, and two more makes four.

Two more makes five.

Hmm.

Somehow I counted five instead of four.

(sighs) Ms. Lara.

There we go.

Put that away.

Now we're gonna mix them all up and create our fishing pole.

There's my fish and I'm the fisherman.

So to make my pole, which is right here, you can see, I'm gonna use my stick.

And because I happen to have these dowls at home, I'm gonna use the fancy stick today.

But again, you can use a stick that you get outside.

Those are really fun too.

I'm gonna take some yarn and unravel it and cut a length of string like that.

And then I'm gonna tie it to the end like this, one, two, how about 10 times, and then do a knot.

You might have to have a grown-up help you with this knot part, because it can be tricky, especially if you're like me, you didn't leave enough yarn to make the knot.

Go in, go in.

All right.

Next, we're gonna take our magnet which I put by the paperclips.

So now it's covered in paperclips.

And we're going to tie it on the end like this.

Okay.

Another knot.

And here we go.

Time for some fishing.

What letter am I going to get?

Let's see.

Two letters.

I got a J and a D. Let's see if I can get another letter.

It'll be really fun to close your eyes.

What letter is it?

Do you recognize it?

A C, that's right.

Let's do one more.

An I. I hope that you try this at activity at home.

It's really, really fun.

And for some added fun, you can actually add a laundry basket and pretend that's your boat.

And you can fish off of the laundry basket while you're in there.

All right.

So I wanted to leave you with a quick book recommendation.

Remember I told you there's another book by Mo Willems that everybody loves?

This one's called "Don't Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus!"

because we learned in our story that the pigeon loves, loves a bus.

And I'll just show you a little preview so you can check it out.

Again, our pigeon is stressed, because he really, really wants to drive the bus just once around the block.

But do you think they're gonna let him, I don't know, he's asking and asking.

You're gonna have to check out this book to find out and I hope you find it at your local library.

Might also check the Sora app, all of our Fresno Unified families have access to it.

All right.

Looks like it's time to go.

And we're gonna sing our quick alphabet song this time.

Ready?

♪ A, B, C you later ♪ ♪ D, E, F, G, I'm gonna miss you ♪ ♪ H, I have to go now ♪ ♪ J, K, bye-bye now ♪ ♪ L, M, N, O, I had a good time ♪ ♪ P, Q, R you gonna miss me ♪ ♪ S, T, U are my best friend ♪ ♪ V, W, X, Y, Z ♪ And that means that I get to Z you later.

Tomorrow's book is another fun one.

It's gonna be all about kindergarten.

And I think it's gonna be about breaking the rules.

Shhh, don't tell the grown-ups.

I hope I get to see you then.

A big smooch from me to you.

(smooches) Don't forget to read, play and use your five senses to be a scientist every day.

Goodbye, boys and girls.

(playful music)