Winter Is Here Book Companion January Preschool Kindergarten 1st 2nd Special Ed

About this resource

One theme, one week. Read the same story every day at circle time — snow falls, the woods and its

animals settle in, and the whole world grows hushed and still — and pull one simple activity after

the read-aloud each day: sort, count, find the letter, get ready for quiet time in order, then build

a craft. Every student page has one short instruction with a picture, so a paraprofessional can run

the room from it too.

This week pairs with **Winter Is Here by Kevin Henkes** (or any quiet winter 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, and every picture in the file is our own drawing or a licensed picture set,

not the book's artwork.

EVERYTHING INSIDE (57 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 ("Hush, Little Woods,"

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 life skill in order, and the core word

• 9 circle-time vocabulary cards to cut out and use at the carpet (snow, tree, bird, sun, moon, star,

owl, squirrel, mountain)

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

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

on every level

• Day 2, Count the snowflakes, 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 T, at 3 levels: Level 1 glues 5 matching T's, Level 2 finds T among 10 look-alike

letters, Level 3 says 10 pictures aloud and glues the 5 that start with the /t/ sound

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

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

• Day 4, a life-skill sequencing page: 5 picture pieces (4 real steps to get ready for quiet time —

put your toys away, get your blanket, stay quiet, rest quietly — first/next/then/last, plus 1 that

does not belong)

• Day 5, a book craft: color and cut a 10-piece quiet winter scene (a big pine tree, an owl, a bird,

a squirrel, a moon, a star, three snowflakes and a hill — every cut a straight line) and glue it

into a quiet-woods coloring scene with a low winter sun and two small pines

• 2 fine motor pages: a tracing-paths page (help the squirrel get to the tree) and a cutting-practice

page (4 strips, easiest first)

• 4 core-word pages for the word of the week, "quiet": 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 tree to color, and 10 forest

animals to cut out and glue around it — they settle in for winter

• 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 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 theme, a different simple activity

every day.

What This Is, And What It Is Not

A print-and-go weekly theme unit built around a quiet-winter-arriving theme. It is not a claim about

any student's age or rate of progress, and it does not reproduce any book, its text, or its artwork —

only our own pine tree, animals and quiet-woods pieces are drawn here.