A Chick Called Saturday

Summary

These calendar activities will help students understand what a calendar is all about in terms of time measurement.

Materials

• A Chick Called Saturday, by Joyce Dunbar
• A class calendar with all the dates on it
• A Blank Calendar (pdf)
• Colored Calendar Squares (pdf) for blank calendar: 4 each of yellow, green, blue, purple, orange, red, pink with the names of the days written on them.
• Colored paper with strips with the days of the week printed on each color in the same order as the colored calendar. (Have enough strips for each student to have enough for the number of days in the upcoming month.)
• Scissors
• Glue sticks
• Small calendar for each student to color

Additional Resources
Other literature connections to teach or reinforce calendar concepts:

• The Twelve Days of Kindergarten, by Deborah Lee Rose and Carey Armstrong-Ellis; ISBN 0810945126
  Work together and see what 12 days looks like on a calendar. Is a month 12 days? Is a week 12 days? Have students help you count 12 days on the calendar and place a marker on the 12th day. Do you think we could count 12 more days in the same month? Mark 12 more days? Are there still 12 days left in the month? Have each child take manipulatives from a container and make a row of 12 in front of him/herself or lace 12 pieces of cereal on a necklace.
• A Day, by Robin Nelson (Lerner Publications Co.: First Step Series, What do you do when you get up until going to bed?); ISBN 0-8225-0177-5
• A Week, by Robin Nelson (Lerner Publications Co.: First Step Series); ISBN 0-8225-0178-3
• A Month, by Robin Nelson (Lerner Publications Co.: First Step Series); ISBN 0-8225-0179-1
• Today is Monday, by Eric Carle; ISBN 0698115635
  This is a fun book to use with nutrition connections.
• Time, by Henry Pluckrose; ISBN 0516454595
  This book makes a good connection between clock time, present calendar time and history.
• A Chick Called Saturday, by Joyce Dunbar; ISBN 0802852602

Intended Learning Outcomes

1. Demonstrate a positive learning attitude.
2. Develop social skills and ethical responsibility.
5. Understand and use basic concepts and skills.
6. Communicate clearly in oral, artistic, written, and nonverbal form.

Instructional Procedures

If students have experienced a daily calendar this activity will help them solidify what the calendar is all about in terms of time measurement.

It is important to teach each individual student the vocabulary and concepts of calendar time measurement. There are children who watch daily calendar activities day in and day out and never really connect to what is happening. Some tend to fairly quickly tune out the whole group daily routine. This activity helps each student be accountable for an individual engagement in calendar concepts.

Invitation to Learn
Read A Chick Called Saturday.

Ask comprehension and connecting questions such as: “What were the names of the baby chicks? Why did the mother hen give them those names? Where have you seen those names before? What day of the week were you born?” (Ask your dad and mom.)

Instructional Procedures
Group participation in discovery of days, weeks, and a month on the calendar. Fine motor cut and paste, and patterning activity.

1. Point to the class calendar. Touch the squares with the dates on them. Tell them each square is one day. One row of days is called one week. All of the days together are called a month. Go back through and point to a day and tell them, “This is one day, this is one day etc.” Then point to a day and ask them, “What is this?” Point and ask several times to reinforce the need to be individually responsible for learning in the group setting.
2. In the story, when was the first chick born? Have a student come point to Sunday on the blank calendar. What did his mother name him?
    
   Give the student a yellow Calendar Square with the word “Sunday” on it and help him/her place it on the first Sunday on the chart-size Calendar. Do the same for the other chicks and days of the first week on the calendar.
3. Count the days of one week on the class calendar. Count the days of one week on the blank calendar. Point out again that those seven days together are called a week. Then ask, “What is the name of all seven days in a row?” Ask the question several times and praise the responders so all understand they need to be personally responsible for individual learning in the group setting.
4. Point to the second Sunday on the blank calendar. Can anyone guess what color we will place on this day? Have a student come up and put a yellow square on that Sunday and repeat for all the Sundays and then for all the other days of the week.
5. Ask the class to tell you the color of all the Sundays, Mondays, Tuesdays, etc. Ask them to help you count how many days are in one week. How many weeks are in one month?
6. Explain that in order to help them understand how long a day, week and month is, you will be making a paper chain with one link in the chain for each day of the month. All the Sundays will be yellow, just like on the calendar, etc. Show them a completed chain. Show them that each Sunday link on the chain is yellow, and each Sunday on the calendar is yellow. Each Monday link on the chain is green, each Monday on the calendar is green, etc.
7. Demonstrate cutting apart the strips to make the chain and gluing them together in the pattern. Explain that they must put the colors in exactly the same order as the calendar shows. Students will then go to their tables where the materials are organized. Place the colored calendar and completed chain where the students can see them for reference.
8. Begin as a whole group to make sure all students understand the directions. As they begin to demonstrate comprehension, allow them to complete the chain independently. Direct students to put their names on a yellow link and glue it together. Ask them to refer to the calendar and the completed chain to see what color should come next. They should all then pick up a green link and thread it through the yellow link, glue and seal it.
9. Interim activities for students to engage in as they complete their chains: Students can work in teams to reconstruct a large calendar chart like the one the class made with colored days. Students can look at books associated with calendaring concepts. Students can look at old calendars.
10. The children will want to take the chains home. Keep a model chain at school and cut a link each day as you point out that day on the class calendar, cutting three each Friday for the days they will be at home.

Extensions

1. Students can do suggested interim activity at the beginning of each day for a week (#9 above) as a gathering activity. Each student will choose a color and place in order on a blank calendar like the one the class made at beginning of the activity.
2. Special holidays, etc. during the month could be marked with a sticker or a link made of foil, both on the chain and on the calendar. They can count how many days until the holiday and cut a link off each day.
3. At the end of the month discuss how long it felt. Did a month seem long or short? Show them an annual calendar, naming each month as you go. Reinforce a day or a week on various monthly calendars as you scan the yearly calendar. (It is fun to teach a motion-chant rhyme to go with the year at this time. “Slap the floor, 2004,” “Boogie and jive, 2005,” etc.)
4. Have children take the assessment calendar home and have their parents help them mark which day of the week they were born.
5. Reread the book and make connections to Standard III, Objective 2 c and e (real and not real animal behavior, animals care for their young), followed by a nonfiction book about mother and baby chicks.
6. Draw pictures of the seven chicks in a journal and label them by writing their names in order or by cutting and pasting their names in order, or drawing the chicks on the spaces on a blank calendar and drawing an arrow from each chick to the day of the week he was born.

Assessment Plan

• Students will respond appropriately in the group learning session.
• Students will show they are learning the relationship between a day, a week, and a month by responding appropriately to questions while they are making their chains.
• Students will color in the days on a small calendar, like the group calendar, and name the days as they color them. Students can write the beginning letter of each day on the corresponding square, or the whole word, for those who are more advanced. They can practice saying the names of the days of the week with a friend and then come in small groups to point and show the days of the week to the teacher.