We completed another Kindergarten Literature Unit, My Cats Nick and Nora, during the past two weeks.  We started homeschool On Aug 11, but had 2 short weeks due to scheduled events.  We did 4 days of lessons, spread out over those 2 weeks.

I love setting up a central area for our theme focus and my daughter loves it too.  I gather our toys and books together and display them the night before we begin our unit. It helps to draw her in and get her excited about our learning time together. I borrow books from the library and also toys from friends to enrich our learning. I gather toys from around the house too {well, actually I send my older boys on a hunt to find things for me}.

This particular unit was simple, CATS! I started with just two cats to represent Nick and Nora from the story.  I also put a portion of our 3-part cat breeds cards in our mini pocket chart.  The extra pieces are in the little kitty bucket {Target dollar spot}.  Our collection of cat books on the bottom, and that was it!

The full set-up…

I divided up our activities into 4 hanging folders, they are behind our You Can Read unit in this basket. I follow a very loose lesson plan and shift things around as needed or desired. I do not stress out at all about what does or does not get done each day.  We just have fun together and learn as we go!

I tried something new by taking small video clips for you throughout our unit.  Let me know if these are helpful to you.

Day One

She immediately wanted to add cats to the set up and gathered every kitty she owns.  They participated in matching up the 3 part cat breed cards in our small pocket chart!.  L loved learning the names of the the cats and finding the best match in her bunch of stuffed kitties.

Then we read the book together and identified which cats of hers best represented the cats in the book; Nick, Nora, and Fluffy.

Balloon color word matching…

We had a nice talk for the character connection, discussing what made Fluffy a mean kitty and how he could have been nicer.

Lots of role playing with the kitties.

Then to the table to color the color-by-number rainbow cat…

We finished by doing the “N is for Nick, Nora, and…” activity!

Day Two

I had the rest of the cats from the 3 part cat breed cards ready for her and she loved that they were different from day one!

Here’s a video clip of her working on the 3 part cat cards.

We made a pipe cleaner cat craft using directions we found here!

She worked on her favorite pet graph, here she was asking her biggest brother to choose his favorite.

She loved the sorting cats activity.  First she sorted by babies and adults.  Then she sorted by color.

Here’s a video clip of us working on sorting cats together.

We read the book every day, and used stuffed animals to help us.

Here she was putting the parts of the story in order.

Day Three

I pulled out the sight word cats that she knew and we went through the book together finding them.  This was a GREAT review and lots of fun!

Here’s a bit of video action…

She really liked the balloon color graphing activity.  She used stickers to record on her graph.

After completing the graph, she wrote in the numbers on the recording sheet.

Here’s a video clip of her working on the graph…

We sorted rhyming words together, and she taped them on when we were done.

We talked about being a Godly friend as she traced the word friend on our Bible verse page.

Day Four

She loved the coin sorting activity, it was a lot of hands on fun.

Here’s a video clip of her in action.

We also did the comprehension questions for the book.  Here’s a tiny video clip of her answering one of the questions with me.

I didn’t get photos for some reason, but she also completed her writing activity {you can see it hanging on the far left in the final photo below}.

All of our work from this unit!  She had so much fun and we made great memories together!

See our printables for this unit here,

our Pinterest board here,

and our book and toy suggestions here!

 

If you blog about this unit will you let me know? 

Leave a link in a comment, email me, or share on my Facebook page?

See More Kindergarten Literature Units here!