The DOE has devices available to lend to families to support their child's remote learning. Please contact your program director or school principal to request a device.
Let's Learn was an educational public television program featuring lessons for children in grades 3-K through second grade created during the pandemic to supplement remote and blended learning. The Let's Learn videos are still available for families to use in supporting learning at home.
Read Aloud for Families and Caregivers
Check out new read-aloud ideas for your 3 or 4 year old right here every week! Come back often for regularly updated book suggestions and activities you can do while learning from home.
Big Ideas
Reading books with children develops their literacy skills and is a good way to enjoy time together. Whether you read a book out loud with your child or watch a recorded version together, the experience is even more meaningful when children can respond. Asking your child questions about the book and engaging in activities about it helps them think carefully about it.
Read Aloud for 3-K - Our Environment
Hooray for Hat! by Brian Won
Essential Question: What can we discover about our environment?
Month Two: Investigating
Weekly Focus: Express and Test Ideas
Consider reading or watching Hooray for Hat! by Brian Won (author/illustrator) with your child several times this week. After enjoying it together, use the activities below to support your child’s understanding of the book and help them connect the book to our remote 3-K learning.
Activity 1
Questions to Support the Read Aloud:
- What happened when Elephant found the hat at his front door?
- What happened when Elephant gave the other animals a hat?
- Why do you think Elephant wanted to give the other animals a hat?
Activity 2
Provide an assortment of materials you think might work well for making a hat (e.g. paper, cardboard boxes, ribbon scraps, crayons, markers). Pose the following question: How can you use these materials to make a hat?
Activity 3
Invite your child to make a hat for someone else. Pose the following question: What will happen if you give this hat to (_______)? Invite your child to share their idea(s). If possible, give the hat to the person your child made it for.
Activity 4
Print and cut out the animals from the story. Invite your child to use them to retell the story. Invite your child to think about how each character might talk or move when they feel grumpy as well as how they might talk or move once they have their hat. Your child could also use hand or finger puppets for this activity.
Read Aloud for Pre-K – Where We Live
Going Up! by Sherry J. Lee (author) and Charlene Chua (illustrator)
Essential Question: Where do the people and animals around me live?
Focus Question: What types of homes do the people in my city (NYC) live in?
Consider reading or Going Up! by Sherry J. Lee (author) and Charlene Chua (illustrator) with your child several times this week. After enjoying it together, use these activities to support your child’s understanding of the book and help them connect the book to our remote pre-K learning.
Activity 1
Questions to Support the Read Aloud:
- Where were Sophie and her dad going? Where was Olive’s birthday party?
- Why was everyone riding the elevator?
- What type of home do you think Sophie and her dad live in? How do you know?
Activity 2
Invite your child to think about this book. What did they like best? Why? Invite them to draw a picture, write, or share their thoughts with you. Take a picture of their work and post on our class platform or share via email.
Activity 3
Sophie, her dad, and all the neighbors ride the elevator in their apartment building together. Invite your child to make an elevator. They can make it any way they would like! Invite them to think of a plan, gather the materials, and then build. If possible, record your child working, or take a picture and share it with your child’s teacher.
Activity 4
Sophie and her neighbors were going to a party on the top floor of their apartment building. Invite your child to pretend you are having your own party and create a party invitation. Support your child in creating the invitation by helping them think about the information they need to include, who to invite, etc.
Activity 5
Create an elevator switchboard by placing numbers in circles to make buttons. Help your child write the numerals and/or make tally marks to represent each number/floor. Start with 1-5 floors and add more floors as your child is ready. Pretend you are taking an elevator ride together. Discuss which floors you are going to and if you are going up or down based on the numbers you pressed. Who might you see when you get off at the floor?