Today is Monday - Picture Book & KID KANDY - Books You Can Sing

Today is Monday
Pictures by Eric Carle
(Scholastic Inc., 1993)

Today IS Monday! What better book to read than Today is Monday by Eric Carle.

Join animals as they eat something different each day of the week. The animals are so good at remembering what they ate the day before, they repeat each day and meal for every new day. By the end of the week, the animals (readers) are working their way backwards from the current day of the week, listing both days and foods.

And, surprise, it's not really animals who are eating! Readers will find out who is eating the meals at the end of Today is Monday.

Yet another surprise is the musical sheet showing the melody for the song that goes with Today is Monday.

Children will enjoy singing the days of the week backwards and seeing all of the animals gobble their food. Don't forget to check out the page at the beginning where Eric Carle gives mealtime greetings in different languages!

KID KANDY:

Make Your Own Mealtime a Song

~ Make your own version of Today is Monday with your child.

~ For one week, write down the main dish you eat and the day of the week. Let your child do the writing or draw a little picture of the foods. (Example: Monday - pizza, Tuesday - tacos)

~ Once you have meals for Monday through Sunday, sing the song! If you are not a musician, make up any silly tune. Kids won't care. Just have fun.


Angie Quantrell loves to make up silly songs. Today she was singing "Whining doesn't work at Nana's house, Nana's house, Nana's house. Whining doesn't work at Nana's house. She loves her kids." to the tune of "Here We Go 'Round the Mulberry Bush." The grands got the message and had fun.

One Monday Morning - Picture Book & KID KANDY

One Monday Morning
Written & Illustrated by Uri Shulevitz
(Macmillan/McGraw-Hill School Publishing Company, 1967)

It's all about days of the week.

On one rainy Monday, the king, queen, and prince went to visit a certain young boy. But he wasn't home.

So they came back the next day. And the next. And the next. For an entire week. Until the boy was home. By then the king's group was quite large.

The boy and the king had a grand visit.

Or did they?

The last illustration makes the reader stop to think about whether the king really visited. Or was the boy making up a story?

You will have to read to find out. (If you can't find this old book, comment below and I will tell you about the illustration and you can make up your own mind.)


KID KANDY:

Days of the Week Hopscotch

One of the goals of preschool and kindergarten is that the students learn the days of the week, preferably in order. There are many wonderful songs that help children acquire this knowledge. But what about a game?

Use chalk to draw a hopscotch board on the sidewalk. It must have 7 squares. A fun hopscotch that keeps the days in the correct order would be a circle hopscotch, where the circle continues on and on and on - just like a real week!

Start at the first square (or anywhere in the circle, which should have spaces in multiples of 7, so the week days keep going in order without leaving any out) and write Sunday. Add the days of the week in order, one in each space.

Play Days of the Week Hopscotch by hopping the days of the week, calling out the days as they are landed on. Or sing the days of the week as your child hops on the squares. Play forever and ever (as my granddaughter loves to say). Eventually, the days of the week will be down pat in your child's memory.


Angie Quantrell loves childhood games. She remembers hopscotch, Chinese jump rope, chasing boys, jump rope, building with rocks, and monkey bars blisters.

Cookie's Week

Cookie's Week by Cindy Ward

Love this book. Especially since my kinders are paying attention to rhyming, illustrations, authors, animals, days of the week...According to one particularly memory-gifted child, I also read it on the first day of school (in August). Today is March 20. He is correct, by the way.

As we re-read Cookie's Week, suddenly my eagle eye super kids noticed, "Hey, that's watercolors!" "And salt!"

Maybe the grammar wasn't correct, but the comments were right on. We have been noticing how authors illustrate and create stories. We've even used watercolor paints, combined with cool salt effects, to make our own illustrations.

Read about Cookie's days and troubles caused by an over-energetic kitten. Enjoy simple predictable phrases and great watercolor illustrations.

Thumb's up.

(Weird, but the photo is correct on my memory card, but each time it loads sideways. Just hold your computer on its' side and you'll be fine.)