The Night Before Winter Break Book Companion December PreK K 1st 2nd

About this resource

One theme, one week. Read the same read-aloud every day at circle time — a classroom packing up and saying

goodbye on the last day before winter break — then pull one simple activity after the read-aloud each day:

sort school things from winter things, count presents, find the letter, put the "packing up to go home"

pictures in order, then build a craft of a backpack packed for winter break. Every student page has one

short instruction with a picture, so a paraprofessional can run the room from it too.

This week pairs with **The Night Before Winter Break by Natasha Wing** (or any winter-break read-aloud you

already have). Not affiliated with the author or publisher. You need your own copy of the book; nothing

from it is reproduced here — every picture in the file is our own drawing or a licensed picture set, not

the book's artwork, and this unit draws its own generic last-day-of-school scene rather than the book's own

plot or gags.

EVERYTHING INSIDE (58 pages)

• 1 Start Here week plan: what to do after the read-aloud each day, plus what else it practices
• 1 book-and-words page naming the read-aloud, an original circle-time chant ("Pack It Up!," written for

this unit — no song or story text is reprinted), and the 9 circle-time vocabulary words

• 9 smartboard slides for whole-group circle time on a projector or interactive board: the cover art, name

the pictures, sort, count (3 slides), the letter hunt, the sequencing life skill, and the core word

• 9 circle-time vocabulary cards to cut out and use at the carpet (backpack, book, pencil, boot, clock,

bus, present, snowman, snowflake)

• Day 1, Sort (school thing or not?), at 3 levels: Level 1 errorless matching, Level 2 the standard

two-group sort, Level 3 a third group added (school thing, winter thing, or toy) — 10 cut-and-glue pieces

on every level

• Day 2, Count the presents, at 3 levels: Levels 1 and 2 count sets of 1 to 5 with a 5-piece numeral strip

to cut and glue; Level 3 counts sets of 6 to 10 and writes the number, no cutting

• Day 3, Letter B, at 3 levels: Level 1 glues 5 matching B's, Level 2 finds B among 10 look-alike letters,

Level 3 says 10 pictures aloud and glues the 5 that start with the /b/ sound

• Writing, at 3 levels: Level 1 traces the big letters, Level 2 traces letters and the word "backpack,"

Level 3 writes the letters and the word independently on primary lines

• Day 4, a life-skill sequencing page ("Pack your backpack to go home! What comes first?"): 5 picture

pieces (4 in order — put your books in, put your pencils in, put on your boots, get on the bus —

first/next/then/last, plus 1 that does not belong)

• Day 5, a book craft: color and cut a 6-piece scene (a big backpack, a book, a pencil, a boot, a

snowflake and a bell — every piece named in the page's own glue instruction, every cut a straight dashed

rectangle) and glue it into a classroom-window scene, the book and pencil glued right into the backpack

• 2 fine motor pages: a tracing-paths page (help the backpack find the bus) and a cutting-practice page (4

strips, easiest first)

• 4 core-word pages for the word of the week, "pack": a big word card for the talker or core board, a

12-word find-and-circle grid (6 of the 12 are the target word), a backpack to color, and 10

book/bell/snowflake pieces to cut out and glue around it

• 1 "Who Did What This Week" data page (one row per student, a prompt-level code for each day — handy

for IEP notes and progress reports)

• 1 family letter to send home on Day 1
• 1 "More From Bright Path Sped" page: four more December theme weeks shown with their own cover art and

a line on what each one does

• 1 credits page (art and font licenses)
• Ink-saver twins of 19 picture-based student pages (the craft and pure-coloring pages are color-only)

in outline art for a photocopier, so the color pages above are optional, not required

Three Levels On Every Academic Task

Sort, count, letters and writing each come in three levels, marked with a small shape instead of a

number so children don't compare theirs to a neighbor's: a circle for starting (errorless matching), a

square for building (the standard task), a triangle for ready for more (a real step up — a third sort

group, counting 6 to 10 with writing, or beginning sounds).

Cutting Built For Small Hands

Every cutting page carries 5 or more pieces, lined up edge to edge so each cut is one straight line.

Pre-cut them yourself for students who are not cutting independently yet.

Color Or Ink-Saver

Print the color pages, or use the ink-saver twins at the back on a photocopier — most picture-based

student pages have both (the craft and pure-coloring pages are color-only by design).

Who This Is For

Any teacher starting a self-contained preschool or early childhood special education classroom who

wants a whole week of circle time, ready to pull and go: one winter-break theme, a different simple

activity every day.

What This Is, And What It Is Not

A print-and-go weekly theme unit built around the last day before winter break — never a claim about any

real student's independence with packing or routines, and never classroom-specific advice: the data page

and family letter are blank fill-in forms. It is not a claim about any student's rate of progress, and it

does not reproduce any book, its text, or its artwork — only our own classroom, backpack and winter pieces

are drawn here.