- Hello, little learners.

Welcome back to another episode of "Reading Explorers."

If you're joining me today, it's your first day of school if you go to a Fresno Unified school.

First day of school!

First day of school!

Woo hoo!

My name is Mrs. Lara.

Can you tell me your name?

I'm so excited that you made it back today.

I have my friend, Ms. Maria here, and she's going to help me sing our good morning song.

Will you sing with me?

Here we go.

♪Good morning.

Good morning ♪ ♪ It's a sunshine kind of day ♪ ♪ Come join Mrs. Lara for some learning and some play.

♪ ♪ Will we sing a song?

♪ ♪ Of course we will ♪ ♪ Make our brains strong?

♪ ♪ Like super strong.

♪ ♪ So come along.

♪ ♪ Yes, come on friends ♪ ♪ For some learning and some play.

♪ All right, Ms. Maria, what are we going to do today?

Ooh, we have so much to do, so let's get started.

This whole week we've been learning about school and we've been talking about classroom rules.

Remember, we read the book, "No, David," and David was having a hard time remembering the things he should be doing and things he shouldn't be doing?

And then we read more books like the dinosaur Penelope Rex.

She ate her classmates, didn't she?

Oh no, you definitely should not do that.

Now, thinking about classroom rules might give you the jitters.

You might get nervous, which is a feeling where you kind of feel scared about what's coming up.

So today we're going to read a book about a little boy who's a little bit scared about the first day of school, and that might've been you.

First though, I have a little song that I want us to sing together about going to school.

Now for this song, which we're going to do twice, you're going to have to help me with some action words.

Are you ready for me to teach them to you?

The first one we're going to do is climb.

So get your climbers out.

Climb.

We're going to climb aboard the school bus.

Then we're going to head off to school like this, and then we're going to hurry and get ready.

So we're going to pretend like you're running and we're going to leave soon.

Put on your seatbelt, so important.

So you're going to put on your seatbelt like this and buckle up real tight.

Oh, I can't breathe.

It's so tight.

And then we're going to count down using our fingers.

We're going to put our 10 fingers up and count down.

Okay, you ready to sing with me?

We did it as a poem the last three days, but today we'll do it like a song to the tune, "I'm a Little Teapot."

So here we go.

♪ Climb aboard the school bus ♪ ♪ We're heading off to school ♪ ♪ Hurry and get ready.

We're going to leave soon ♪ ♪ Put on your seatbelt ♪ (makes clicking noise) ♪ And buckle up real tight ♪ ♪ Cause here comes the countdown ♪ ♪ So count with all your might ♪ 10 fingers.

Here we go.

10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1 Let's get on our bus and we're going.

(vrooming sound) So for many of you, you got to go to school today.

How exciting!

Now, I think I hear Ms. Maria.

(doorbell ringing) Oh, there's the doorbell.

Here is our letter for the day.

Now remember, when we read our letter we start on the left and we go to the right.

Oof, you're right.

I have a little song to help us remember.

♪ This is the left.

♪ (snaps twice) This is the right.

(snaps twice) ♪ When we read, we start at the left and slide to the right.

♪ So let's read.

Dear Mrs. Lara, I was so nervous about the first day of school that I could not sleep.

Ooh, did that happen to you?

It happens to teachers too.

I can never sleep on the first day of school.

Look at these bags under my eyes.

Then came the sheep.

Hm?

Oh my!

They wanted to go to school with me.

Love, Concerned.

Have you ever had a sheep want to go to school with you?

Oh, what a strange character.

I wonder what book we're going to read.

Let's see.

(sings triumphant tune) Oh, look at this one.

"The Night Baa-fore the First Day of School."

It was written by Don Young.

Don Young is the author.

Remember, the author writes the words.

And illustrated by Pablo Pino.

The illustrator draws the pictures.

Now let's look at the pictures at this front cover.

You're going to see a sheep, and they made a monster in a paper bag and an airplane.

And there's a little boy, and (gasps) they're drawing a mustache on him.

And he has a backpack.

I wonder what this book is going to be about.

Let's read it together.

Here we go.

The Night Baa-fore the First Day of School.

Some snacks, glue and scissors, paints, pencils, a pen.

Bo goes through his checklist again and again, then stares at his backpack and hollers, "Hey sheep!

Please jump and I'll count you.

I can't fall asleep."

Now, I'm going to pause here.

You might not have heard of this, but when you are having trouble going to sleep, some people like to pretend that they're counting sheep, and that helps them fall asleep.

So I think that's what our character, Bo, is doing.

I need to, hm, tomorrow's my first day of school.

So there he is.

There's the sheep and Bo's trying to get to sleep.

They jump.

(whooshing sound) But, they smell snacks.

And so they stop, sniff.

Can you sniff with me?

(sniffing) And drool.

I won't ask you to do that.

"No eating," Bo tells them.

"Please jump.

I need rest.

I have to get up soon and get myself dressed."

So there's the naughty sheep.

This one even has pretzels.

"Put on my sneakers, eat breakfast, and plus, I have to be ready in time for the bus."

They hear the word "bus" and they want to ride too.

"Nope, sorry.

It's coming from me, not for you."

(giggling) I don't know if you can see, but this little sheep even has a lot of hair and it's taking a comb and brushing his hair, getting ready for school.

The sheep grab Bo's backpack and dart out the door.

They stumble and stuff spills all over the floor.

So there they go out the door, taking his backpack.

And Bo worked so hard to prepare.

Sheep One swipes the pencils and draws on the walls.

While Two paints a mural that's seven feet tall.

Wow!

So if you ever have gone around our community, you might see what's called a mural.

It's just a large art piece.

Usually on the side of a building.

Sheep Three finds the crayons and bites off the tips.

But Four saves the red ones and brighten Bo's lips.

Oh no.

Bo offers to give them a snack if they stop.

Carrots and kale with a cherry on top.

They race to the cupboards cause carrots won't do.

They munch and they crunch and they chomp and they chew.

Can you munch and crunch?

(crunching) Sheep Five snags a lunch bag and makes a strange creature.

Six swallows the apple Bo picked for his teacher.

Oh no.

What is Bo gonna give his teacher?

Sheep Seven grips scissors, and piece after piece, she snips and she clips and she trims the flocks' fleece.

So the fleece are what sheep have all over them.

So she's trimming them up to give them haircuts.

Sheep Eight spots a notebook and rips out the sheets.

Some become airplanes and some become treats.

Sheep Nine squirting glue out like he's got a hose, while Ten leaves a trail after blowing his nose.

Oh no.

Look at the chaos that these sheep have created for poor Bo.

Bo worries, now morning just hours away.

And the first day of school is a very big day.

Exhausted, he calls an emergency meeting.

"It's bedtime!"

Bo barks, but the flock's busy bleating.

(bleating) Till, look, what do you think is going to happen?

I wonder, do you think the sheep are going to make it to the school yard?

Let's keep going.

A monster appears and frightens Sheep Ten.

Sheep Nine wets his wool, so Bo hugs them both.

Then, Sheep Eight builds a fort and begs Bo not to look as Seven sneaks in with a bear and a book.

Sheep Six doing yoga, gets stuck in a pose.

But Bo finally frees him by pulling his toes.

Sheep Five and Sheep Four take a bath in the sink with soap in their eyes, shedding tears as they blink.

Now Sheep Three wants it dark so she turns off the light.

Sheep Two and Sheep One started a flock pillow fight.

There they are.

When feathers go flying and stick to the glue, "That's it!"

declares Bo, and he knows what to do.

So look, he's holding his thumb up and he's smiling.

Do you think he has an idea?

Oh, what is he going to do?

I hope he doesn't make sheep stew.

(whispering) It's not sheep stew.

Let's keep reading.

Round them all up.

He counts 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, and 7.

Then what does Bo see?

The flock's fast asleep in a feathery heap while Bo's left to clean up, scrub and scour and sweep.

Let's see.

Bo hauls all the sheep to his room and to bed.

So when it says Bo hauls them, that means he carries them or moves them, then fluffs up his pillow and lays down on his head.

He's tired.

It's quiet.

It's Bo's chance to sleep.

He closes his eyes and he dozes off.

Beep, beep, beep, beep-beep.

There's the school bus getting ready to pick up Bo.

And look at all the sheep fast asleep.

My favorite one is this one.

He's sleeping with his mouth open like he's snoring.

(snoring) I wonder if sheep snore.

Well, I hope that you enjoyed this book.

Remember that you can check out more books like this on the Sora app and your local library.

And actually, I think our school district has little libraries, little free libraries where you can go and kind of pick up a book and leave one to share with our community.

So you'll notice in this book, there were a lot of rhyming words, weren't there?

Now remember, a rhyming word is a word that sounds the same at the end.

So we're going to find some rhyming words today.

We're going to find words that rhyme with sheep.

I thought this picture of a sheep was funny.

He's sticking out his tongue.

All right, let's see.

Sheep.

We're going to find words that rhyme with sheep.

Let's try this one.

Do you know what this is?

(vrooming sound) It's a Jeep.

Let's say them together.

Sheep, Jeep.

Do they sound the same at the end?

They do.

Sheep, Jeep.

They both say -eep, so I'm going to put it right up here.

And then I have, how about this one?

Do you recognize this?

Yours might look a little different, but this is pajamas.

Pajamas, sheep.

Do they sound the same?

Let's say it again.

Pajamas, Sheep.

No, they don't sound the same.

Boo to that.

All right, you stay down here pajamas.

How about this one?

Sweep, sweep.

Sheep, sweep.

Do they sound the same at the end?

Yes.

Sheep, sweep, they both say -eep.

All right, we're going to put it right up here.

So far we found two rhyming words.

Let's try this one.

Ooh, do you recognize this?

It's my mortal enemy.

The alarm clock.

It wakes me up in the morning when I want to stay fast asleep.

So let's see.

Does it rhyme with sheep?

Sheep, alarm?

No, they don't sound the same at the end.

You stay down here.

All right.

Let's try a few more.

How about this one?

Bed, bed and sheep.

Do they sound the same?

No.

Bed and sheep don't sound the same.

You might use the sheep, like in the story to go to bed, but they are not rhyming words.

Here's another one.

Oh, it makes me so sad.

It's a little baby crying or weeping.

So let's say the word weep and sheep together.

Ready?

Sheep, weep.

Do they rhyme?

Yes, they sound the same.

Sheep, weep.

They both say -eep.

Here we go.

And last one.

It looks like a rectangle, but it's actually a pillow.

Let's say that.

Pillow, sheep.

Do they sound the same?

No, they do not sound the same, do they?

All right, let's review our rhyming words before I tell you about the project that we're going to make.

So sheep rhymes with Jeep, sweep and weep.

They all sound the same at the end.

Can you think of any other words that rhyme with sheep?

Hm, I wonder.

Now today, we're going to move on to our project place.

It's not really connected to the book.

It's actually connected more to the first day of school.

I want you to have a place where you kind of remember what you did on the first day and how you drew and wrote your name.

I always did this with my students on the first day.

And that was create a front cover for a portfolio.

So it's a two-day process.

So let me hop over to my project place and I'll show you what we're going to do.

Oh, I said hop, huh?

All right, we'll hop.

We'll hop.

Let's go.

Hop, hop, hop.

(giggles) All right, so the first thing that we're going to do is we're actually going to make our name with some tissue paper.

So this is going to be what we put on the front of our portfolio.

So you can see right here that I made my last name, which is Lara, which is special letter L, then I have an A, R and an A.

Now you'll notice a couple of things.

One, I used uppercase letters for my name.

When you write in the upper grades, you're going to use proper case, which is one upper case, then all the rest lower case.

But when you're learning to write, we actually recommend that you start with uppercase letters because they're easier to write for little hands.

So what you'll need for this project or this part of the project is a strip of paper, I used black, some chalk, some glue and some tissue paper.

So here we go.

First thing you're going to want to do is you're going to want to draw your name like this with some chalk.

Now you can use a pencil too, but I wanted you boys and girls to be able to see it, so I'm using some chalk.

So there's my L. There's my A.

There's my R. And there is my A.

Okay, so just like that.

And then what I did is I actually took little bits of tissue paper, and I'll pass them out here, and I glued them on.

Now you'll notice, I made a pattern with mine.

I did pink, green, pink, green, yellow, blue, yellow, blue, and then pink, green, again, and green and blue.

This just adds another layer of learning and integrates math into what is already just an art project and writing your name.

So you can see how it all mixes together.

So what you'll need for the tissue paper is just some regular tissue paper that you use.

Like when you get gift wrap like this, save it because you can do so many art projects with it, some scissors, and then you cut up your tissue paper into some squares like this.

I won't have time to show you how to do this, but I will show you the finished product so you can do it yourself, because we have to do another part of our portfolio.

So you're going to take one of the little tiny squares, put some glue on and kind of put it down like this, right on your letter.

And when you're done, it's going to end up looking like this.

Other things you can use are bits of paper.

You can use stickers.

Stickers are always fun.

And actually the act of taking out a sticker is really a good fine motor skill activity because you have to reach in and be so careful.

So try it with stickers too.

So now that we have our name, I'm going to show you the second part of what we're going to use to make our portfolio cover.

So this is just a sheet of white paper that I've used with different paints to make it very colorful.

And then tomorrow I'm going to show you how to make a picture of yourself in black and white, that we'll cut out and put here, and then put our name on top.

It actually looks really cool when it's finished.

So let me show you what we're going to do.

So I'm going to use my white paper here, and I know, I can't help it, but we're going to get a little messy.

We're actually going to finger paint.

All right, you ready?

I have my primary colors, which you can use to make any other colors, right here.

Yellow, amarillo in Spanish, red, or rojo in Spanish and blue, or azul in Spanish.

So here we go.

Ooh, I always feel like playing the piano and just putting all my fingers in there.

You can do that.

I'm gonna try the yellow.

Ooh, here we go.

Put it in there.

And what might happen if I mix a little red with the yellow?

Let's see, what color might I get?

What did I get?

Orange, that's right.

Then I can just keep going, mixing it all up.

I like to do finger painting with this activity because when you're old like me, you're a old lady and practically walk with a cane.

you'll look back at your portfolio and think, "Gosh, my fingers were small, and I did that with my own two hands."

All right, we're going to dip a little yellow in there.

What color might I make with blue and yellow?

Let's take a look.

Ooh, I've made green.

So like I said, you can make any color you want, any color on the rainbow with this.

You just have to be careful you don't mix them all together because guess what happens?

I'll let you try.

But you get a chocolate brown, which is good all in itself, but kind of yucky when you make all of yours just the one color.

I also wanted to show you another way you can do this.

If you didn't want to use finger paint and get your fingers dirty, because a lot of children don't like the feeling or sensation of having paint in their hands.

It does feel kind of slimy.

You can actually put a gob of paint on.

You can do that direct from the tube.

And then I have a little tool here, and this is just a paint scraper.

You can use a fork.

You can use a piece of cardboard that you cut out to look like this.

And then you can just kind of smear it across the paper like this.

Look.

And then I've seen recently there's a huge trend with scrape art.

And this actually has an edge where you might scrape it.

So let's go through and scrape it and I'll show you.

It's actually a really cool effect if you want to try it.

Look at that.

Look at that how that looks.

And there's that chocolate brown coming through.

You'll see it in a minute.

But you can scrape all of it all up.

Okay.

Let's look.

I have to show you the finished product.

Now, it is really fun to prepare paper, of course messy.

But what I used to do in my classroom, here's a little teacher tip, is I would always have children in the art center, prepare paper for me like this.

And I would use it as a background for lots of different things or I would cut it up.

And when we did Eric Carle-style art activities, I would have tons of prepared paper that the children could use.

So having something like this that's more free form in your art center might be a good idea.

I'll show you in just a minute.

I'm gonna have to do some cleanup, because of course, I got messy.

Can't help it.

Here is what my final product looks like.

You can start to see the chocolate brown coming through on the edges.

So if you want to make your portfolio, you're going to have to prepare your paper, let it dry for a little while.

Prepare your name just like I suggested, like this.

And then tomorrow bring your paper and a black marker with you because we're going to make a portrait, or drawing, of ourself.

So start to think about what might you want to include.

For me, I definitely wanted earrings, long ones because I can't really wear them.

My ears are too sensitive, so in drawings always include them.

All right boys and girls, looks like it's time to come to a messy end.

I don't think I have my alphabet letters with me here, so I'm gonna go ahead and sing our alphabet song without the letters.

You're going to have to think about what the letters are.

♪ A, B, C ya later ♪ ♪ D, E, F, G I'm gonna miss ya ♪ ♪ 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 ♪ All right, I'll see you tomorrow.

We're going to have tons more fun.

So remember, we've been reading books all about classroom rules and being nervous about the first day of school, which for many of you it's today.

So tomorrow we're going to read a book about grownups that want to come to school with us, because by now you've learned the secret that school is a very fun place, full of people who care about you and friends who want to play.

So once the grownups heard about this, they're like, "Hey, I want to come too."

And we're going to find out in our book if they get to come with us or not.

So join me tomorrow for more reading fun.

Until then, Ms. Lara sends you a big squeeze and a big smooch (kissing sound) and reminds you to read and to play, and of course, to use your imagination and five senses to be a scientist every single day.

Goodbye my friends.

We'll see you tomorrow.