(lively playful music) - Hello, little learners.

Welcome back to our pre-K and TK classroom.

My name is Miss Laura, special letter L, hello.

Now I'd love to learn your special letter so if you can tell me your name, I'd love to hear it when I put my hand to my, ready?

Hello, welcome back.

So this week we're learning all about Earth Day, even though it already happened, the message I wanna give you is that earth day is every day.

We should always care about taking care of our environment or the natural world around us.

Though today, we have some more words to learn, we have an activity where we're gonna retell a story.

Look at the pictures, what could this story be about?

That face is worrying me.

And then we're gonna make a project in our project place, using recycled materials.

Remember recycling is when you take trash or things that you would throw away and you create something new with them, and we're gonna make a beautiful bouquet of flowers using egg cartons and a two-liter bottle and some pipe cleaners.

Ooh, can't wait to see how that turned.

We're also gonna read a book that has a ferocious dinosaur that unfortunately, that dinosaur dies.

How sad?

I hope the story has a happy ending.

We'll wait and find out, but right now, we're gonna sing a song.

All about Earth Day in our planet and how much we love it.

And remember, this song has some movements in it.

So here we go.

♪ I love the earth and everything that lives ♪ ♪ I love the plants ♪ ♪ And the beauty each one gives.

♪ ♪ I love the animals and the fishes at sea ♪ ♪ For I am a part of the earth and the earth is part of me.

♪ And it's true, it is.

If we didn't have an earth, humans wouldn't have a home, and animals wouldn't have a home and our plants wouldn't have a home.

Oh, that would make us very sad.

Now we're gonna sing a little song about a way that we can protect our earth through recycling.

Now this song is in Spanish, so I'm trying to teach you a few Spanish words.

The first one we learned was tierra, tierra means earth.

It's the planet that we live in that a lot.

Next one was reciclado, that means recycling, reciclado.

Now we're gonna learn another word, ayudar.

Ayudar means help.

And in our song, we're gonna say ayudarnos.

That means to help.

Okay, let's sing our song, ready?

And turn hands out because recycling is a cycle which goes round.

That's why we're making our hands like this.

(Laura singing in Spanish) I love to teach you words in another language.

I wish I knew more.

Now it's time for us to learn other kinds of words, words that are in our story that are gonna help us understand what we're reading or what the story is about.

So let's reveal them behind the door.

(Miss Laura humming) Here are her words and we have three of them.

The first word is a word that I hope you know well, it's special letter R, responsible.

Can you say that word with me?

Responsible, that's right.

Responsible means to have authority or control over something, in charge, or at least that's what it means in our story.

Our responsible means you're kind of in charge of something.

So I want you to remember that as we read, the next word is (shushes), secrecy.

Special letter S, secrecy.

Do you hear the word secret in there?

That's right, and it means kind of the same thing.

It means keeping something secret, secrecy.

Number three is actually two words that we're gonna hear at the end of the story.

They're very big, fancy words, oolala, cha cha cha.

The first one is endangered.

Endangered, ooh.

And the next one is extinct.

You might have heard the word extinct because that's a word that we use to describe dinosaurs.

My students love dinosaurs.

So endangered and extinct.

That means at risk of not existing, endangered, and extinct means not existing, not around anymore.

Just like dinosaurs, accept in stories.

And that's one of the characters in our book.

So that's why I love to share books with you because they have characters and things from our imagination, things that could be extinct.

So here it is, our book is called "Dinosaur Woods".

Dinosaur Woods, hmm.

Now I want you to take a look, there's a big ferocious, fierce dinosaur right here, and there's some animals down here.

Hmm, I wonder what this book is gonna be about.

I hope the dinosaur doesn't eat the animals.

Hmm, we'll have to see.

The author is George McClements.

The author writes the words.

Here we go, "Dinosaur Woods: Can Seven Clever Critters Save Their Forest Home?"

"It is also dedicated for my pack, Rachel, Samuel and Matthew."

That means the author wrote the book for them.

Here we go.

In four days, seven friends were going to lose their home.

I wonder if these are the seven friends, let's count.

One, two, three, four, five, six, seven.

And they all have names.

Let's see this one's Richard, because of course, Rachel, this is Milton the Snake, Jimbo, Nut, this is Luke and Rojo down there.

This troubled them greatly.

So did they wanna lose their home?

No, hmm.

They tried to speak to the people responsible.

Remember responsible means they're in charge.

So they tried to speak to the people in charge.

"Hello, could we chat?"

"Hello."

Milton, The Snake, says, "A bear, I wanna chat with you."

Oh no and look at, "Anybody home?"

Knock, knock, knock.

This is the restroom, I wouldn't wanna be bothered there, but for some reason no one would listen.

They're not listening to the poor seven friends.

"What are we going to do?"

Asked Luke.

"We've tried everything."

Oh no.

"Hey, watch your feet," said Milton.

"Sorry Milton."

"I know," said Rojo, "But we can't give up.

We need something new, something big, something amazing."

Look, the letters are even big.

So that'll help you read the word, big.

What could they be thinking of?

So the friends started thinking.

There they are thinking, hmm, hmm.

I'm thinking, "Maybe I'll think better if I lay down."

There's Rojo, "I need some space."

Nut is just coughing (coughs).

And they're thinking.

Look, he fell over, Milton is just down on the floor.

Bear just gave up and turned down until Rojo was struck by an idea.

Aha.

Actually, it was a piece of paper and the Paper said, "Come see the amazing dinosaurs life like robotics."

Look, there they are.

Life like robotics means they're not real dinosaurs, they're robots, but they look like dinosaurs.

"That's it," he cried.

What could he be thinking?

"We'll build a dinosaur.

There's no way they'll tear down our home if they think a dinosaur lives."

Look, he's in his brain thinking about big, ferocious, fierce, dinosaur.

Oh, Nut is just coughing (coughs).

Everyone agreed.

How are they gonna build this dinosaur?

What an idea?

The friends spent the rest of the day collecting materials.

Look, they're using sticks and leaves and vines and logs and borrowed burlap So there they are, burlap is a type of fabric.

Then Rojo spent the next 36 hours working in total secrecy, that means he kept his secret, until, what's gonna be behind the page?

The dinosaur was finished.

"Ooh, how does it work?"

Asked Jimbo.

Look at that big, huge dinosaur.

Look, they use little sticks for his teeth or big sticks, and for his hands and feet and his body.

Oh, I'd be scared if I saw that big dinosaur there.

Here's how it's gonna work.

"It's easy," say Rojo.

"First we climb in, second, we take our preassigned stations, and third, we scare away the guys on the bulldozer."

Look, he has this plan all laid out.

"Look," said Luke, "Someone's coming."

Who's coming?

Do, do, do, do do, it's the workers, the workers, who wanna cut down the woods where the animals live.

Oh no, let's see.

Two men making their final demolition check entered the clearing.

Demolition means they're gonna tear everything down.

"Quick, everyone to your stations," shouted, Rojo.

Those two men aren't gonna know that there's a big dinosaur.

So Rojo took a deep breath, can he take a deep breath with me?

(breathing in) He crossed his fingers.

That's something you do when you want there to be lots of luck on your side.

And then he roared a terrible roar.

Ready, roar with me with that deep breath.

(Miss Laura roaring) It worked, the man ran for their lives.

"Yikes."

"We gotta go tell everybody."

There they go running.

They even dropped their things and their plans.

As word about the dinosaur spread, scientists and news crews from around the world flocked to the tiny patch of woods.

"This is great," said Rojo, "Nothing can go wrong now."

There they are inside the dinosaur.

Mm, except they are saying, "I think I'm overheating."

"Really?"

Now, I want you to think, is it a good idea to have seven friends inside of a dinosaur robot?

Hmm, what is going to happen?

And that's when it did, it was chaos inside the dinosaur.

Look there they are.

My rental, "Look out."

"Oops."

"Hey."

Ruth telling Rachel, "I'm not happy."

But the biggest problem that came when Rojo failed to notice cable on the ground.

See, it says a little arrow.

Biggest problem, there was the cable.

Look what happened, let me these big, huge words.

Crash, crash.

There's the dinosaur dead, well, it was a robot.

And not really dead, but there it is all in pieces.

When the dust cleared, the friends found themselves surrounded by cameras and clipboards.

"Get ready for some shouting," said Rojo.

And he was right, so there they were.

There was shouting but excited shouting.

"A Big Mouth Jinx Fox."

"A Woodpecker."

"A Himalayan Frost Bear."

"A Crabby-Faced Punching Rabbit."

"A Left-Footed Klutz Deer."

"A Drop-Tail Adder."

Oh, there they're.

They're excited, I think they're naming off what kind of animals they are.

It turned out that the friends were something called endangered, and in Milton's case, extinct.

That means Milton was the only one of his kind.

An important scientist declared the tiny patch of woods a protected site, and she named it Dinosaur Woods.

"I hereby declare this is a protected site."

So in the end, the small group of friends did have something to save their home.

It says Dinosaur Woods Nature Preserve.

It wasn't new, it wasn't big but it was amazing.

They had each other.

And look, they even include plans to build your own dinosaur.

Here it is.

And of course it reminds you to check the recycling then, we don't wanna buy any materials.

We wanna try to save our environment by using what we have.

The end.

So what do you think of the story of Dinosaurs Woods?

I felt like I was sad, then I was excited, then I was sad again, and I was worried, and then I was happy at the end, so many feelings.

That's what I love about books.

And I love to read books to you, but of course, I want you to be able to read books on your own.

So one of the ways that you read books is just by looking at the pictures, you don't even have to read the words.

So I drew some pictures here that are gonna help us re-tell the story of Dinosaur Woods.

Let's see if you can remember what happened in the text.

So the first thing here, here's our clue, we're gonna read them.

There's a forest.

And look, it says four days and seven, and there's a sign that means no more.

That's right, there were seven friends and in four days, their home was gonna be taken away.

So they tried to reach out to people who would help, people responsible.

But did those people listen?

No.

So the seven friends thought, "We have to think big," and they thought about making what?

A dinosaur, that's right.

But not just any dinosaur, the fiercest dinosaur they can make.

And when they did, the workers came and how did they feel?

Look at the picture.

Oh no, they were scared.

That's right.

But then they went and the dinosaur collapsed everywhere and there was no more dinosaur.

But at the very end, they found out that they were both endangered and Milton was even extinct.

So they got to keep the woods and they were very happy at the end, weren't they?

So I hope that you enjoyed that retelling of a story.

Remember comprehension or understanding or retelling a story is an important part of literacy development.

So right now we're gonna head over to our project place and we're gonna start our flower project.

I don't know if we'll have time to finish, but let's try our best.

Let's walk over there.

So I thought what's something beautiful that we can make with egg cartons?

And of course the first thing that came to mind is flowers.

Because I love to be in my garden and smell the flowers all around me.

So we're gonna make this a little flower using an old egg carton that ordinarily, would've gone to the trash.

This would be a great gift for someone special in your life.

There's is a holiday coming up called Mother's Day, and these would be very beautiful in a bouquet or there's lots of these flowers put together.

So we're gonna start this project and hopefully finish it, If not, we'll finish it tomorrow.

All right, so here are the supplies you'll need.

You'll need an old egg carton just like this, of course, no eggs in there, you're gonna need some paints of your choice, I just have a few that I had in my house here, a paint brush, some scissors, and then you're gonna need these things that you buy at the place where everything costs a dollar or a dollar and 25 now, and these are called pipe cleaners.

Now, if you don't have pipe cleaners, do not go out and buy any.

I'm sure that you can think of a creative way to use something that you have around your house, like a stick.

So the first step is you're going to paint your egg carton.

So I'm gonna take my paints right here and you're gonna paint the front and the back of it because you're gonna be seeing both sides.

So I'm gonna take my blue right here, and notice I'm kind of just kind of brushing it along there.

Sometimes I see boys and girls or students, they go and they smash their paint brush in there.

I wanna take it easy, take it easy lemon squeezy.

I think I'm gonna make a blue flower.

And then I don't mind if my colors mixed so I'm gonna use one pink brush.

But if you mind that your colors mix, you can use multiple brushes or you can actually get a little cup of water and dip it in.

But I like to see what colors I can create.

Now, did you know what color you make if you mix all colors together?

You actually make brown.

I've made lots of brown in my day 'cause I love to mix colors.

There we are, painting the inside, make sure you get everything.

All the way around.

Now, if I was given this bouquet of flowers made out of recycled egg cartons, I would keep them forever because they're flowers that don't die.

That would be a lot of fun, huh?

Here we go.

Up and around.

So I got the front side, there you go showing you, now I gotta flip it over and do the same to the backside.

I'll just start it here.

And lucky for me, I have a few that I've already painted.

Yes, this does take a while to dry.

So once you paint the front and back, you're gonna wanna let it sit for 10 to 12 minutes until it's fully dry depending on the thickness that you put the paint on.

Now, one trick I have is save the top because you can actually put your egg cartons to dry right on there.

So here are some that I have painted and they're fully dry.

Now for this, you might need a grownup's help because it can be a little bit tricky.

You're gonna wanna cut out each of these little parts.

You see how each one has little parts?

Now it's made a thick cardboard.

So that's what I mean you might need a grown up of help.

You see me struggle (exclaims).

It's not that hard but it might be hard for little hands.

Cut out each part like this.

All the way down like that, and around like this.

One more so I can show you.

Now we have one, two, three, four, five, six flowers that we can make.

So the next thing you're gonna wanna decide is if you want big petals or little petals.

So you're gonna cut around the flower like this.

Again, you can have a grownup help you, but I think this is something the kiddos can do like this.

Now, if you want little petals, what you're gonna do is you're gonna just cut down to the middle, don't cut all the way through.

I'll show you what it looks like in just a minute here.

And get your little petals as close together as you can.

Just like that.

Look, see, little tiny, it's tend to look like a flower.

Now you can do big petals, no petals, that would be interesting.

So it looks more like a tulip.

So I'm gonna cut around here, all the way around.

And of course you can save these little bits for leaves.

Here's a no-petal flower.

And then let's do one with bigger pedals.

Cutting around, cutting around.

Save this part.

And then bigger petals, just cut them out like this.

Just cut out like little triangles.

I know it's hard to see here but I'll show you in just a minute.

See kind of bigger petals like that, see?

And then you have some flowers that are ready for their stems.

Now, here is a tricky part.

This one, you might need an adult to help you.

You can take a screwdriver, you can open up scissors and have an adult pierce a hole just straight through like this, see?

This is gonna be where your pipe cleaner goes through.

Let me do it to the two others.

Now looks like we might run out of time for me to show you the next step, but that's fine because we have tomorrow.

We can finish off our bouquet and then maybe we make an easel, which is our next project.

So you're gonna take your pipe cleaner, I'm gonna use this sparkling one, and you're gonna make a little loop around your finger like this, and this is gonna help the pipe cleaner stay.

So you're gonna string it through just like that, and kind of make a little knot like this, and you have your first flower, what do you think?

Isn't it beautiful.

Let's try one more.

All right, remember loop it around, put it through and then, just like that, flower.

So now we have our flowers.

So tomorrow I'm gonna show you how we can make a little planter for your flower.

We can paint it and then add tissue paper to make your flower stand up.

So you can present a bouquet to somebody that you love.

Speaking of people that I love, you know that I love you with my whole heart.

And I hope that you enjoyed today's lesson.

Come back tomorrow for more recycling fun.

Until then, I'm sending a big squeeze from me to you.

Mm, we'll see you later.

(playful music)